Skipper Harmon and his wife had been from church for 45 minutes when he heard his mule, Max, kicking in the barn. Harmon said he walked outside his back door, about 20 feet from the barn, and saw a brown pit bull with blood dripping from its face leave the structure. Before Harmon ran back in the house, he saw a larger, black blood-stained pit bull follow the first out of the barn.

“When I came back outside with my gun, they were gone,” Harmon said.

Max, Harmon’s 3-year-old pony mule, was badly injured, but the rest of his horses and ponies were unharmed.

“He was chewed up real bad, especially around his nose and jaw,” Harmon said. “There weren’t just bite marks on his body, his entire hide was pulled back.”

Harmon said Max and his livestock will be fine, but his main concern is for children in the area, especially students at Jonesville Middle School whose campus is adjacent to Harmon’s property, located at 113 Washington St.

“I saw what they could do to a mule, so no telling what they could do to a child,” Harmon said.

After calling the Sheriff’s Office and animal control, Harmon said he immediately contacted District 6 Commissioner George A. Chambers.

“In the ’90s, I had a similar incident personally where I lost four or five head of cattle, but this is the first one I’ve been aware of since then,” Chambers said.

Chambers contacted Principal Dana Harman and Assistant Principal Glen Harding of Jonesville Middle School who took special precautions to ensure students’ safety.

“We sent out an e-mail to all teachers and instructors to keep the kids inside,” Harding said. “We told the P.E. teachers to stay inside instead of taking classes out to the fields.”

There was no disruption to class schedules or instruction despite the change, according to Harding.

“It’s just like if it were a rainy day,” he said.

At this point, Harman and Harding have not determined how long they will keep students indoors.

“There is not a timeline for something like this,” Harding said. “Our biggest concern is for the safety of our teachers and students.”

Authorities said they have not located either of the dogs.

If the dogs are found, animal control officers do not have any legal right to destroy the animals based on the incident with Harmon’s mule. According to title 4 chapter 8 of Georgia’s statute on animals, a dog is only classified as “dangerous” if it “aggressively bites, attacks, or endangers the safety of humans without provocation after the dog has been classified as a potentially dangerous dog and after the owner has been notified of such classification.”

By law, however, Harmon would be entitled to financial compensation for the damage to his livestock.

“I think the people who own these dogs ought to be held responsible,” Harmon said.