Bowie police shoot dog attacking owner, man hospitalized with serious injuries

Bowie police shot and killed a dog Sunday morning after officers found a 52-year-old man lying on the ground and still being mauled in the 13000 block of Midsummer Lane.

The City of Bowie Police Department said officers were called around 7:30 a.m. on April 26, 2026, after a report that a dog was attacking its owner. When officers arrived at the Bowie home, they found the man under attack and tried unsuccessfully to stop the animal before shooting it to end the assault.

The man was taken to the hospital in serious condition. Police said he suffered serious injuries to multiple parts of his body. Officials have not released his identity.

The dog’s remains were removed by the Prince George’s County Animal Control Services Division for testing, and the case remains under investigation by Bowie police. No further details were immediately released about what led to the attack or whether anyone else was at the home when officers arrived.

The episode put one of Prince George’s County’s fastest-growing communities in an emergency-response situation that unfolded in minutes, with police forced to make a split-second decision on a residential street just after sunrise. Midsummer Lane sits in a neighborhood where residents expect quiet weekend mornings, not a violent animal attack that ends with gunfire and a trip to the hospital.

Police have not said whether the dog had a history of aggression, whether there had been prior calls to the address, or whether any leash or containment issues were involved. Those questions are likely to remain central as investigators sort out how the attack began and what officers encountered when they got there.

For now, the immediate facts are stark: a Bowie man was badly hurt in his own yard or home, officers were unable to stop the attack by other means, and animal control has taken custody of the dog’s body as part of the investigation. In a county where police and animal control are often separate layers of response, the case now moves from a street-level emergency to a formal review of what happened inside that 13000 block of Midsummer Lane.