A pit bull that attacked a woman and the dog she was walking Thursday evening is now in quarantine at the Montgomery County Animal Resource Center.

Tonulette Armstrong was on her way to the corner store, taking her Jack Russell terrier for a walk on North Ardmore Avenue near Edison Street at about 6:30 p.m., when the pit bull attacked.

The "big headed pit bull" tried to knock her down, Armstrong said, scratched her arm and bit her dog on his leg after she scooped him up to take him out of harm's way.

"I was just trying to save him," she told News Center 7.

Armstrong screamed and her husband came to their rescue. She did not require a visit to a hospital.

The pit bull apparently came charging out of a house at 160 N. Ardmore, Dayton Sgt. Paul Saunders said. Armstrong, he said, "picked her terrier up to keep it from getting hurt."

The pit was placed in quarantine at the Animal Resource Center by animal control officers since there was a dog bite, Saunders said. The owner, who has two other dogs chained in the yard, will have to go to the center to get the dog. The owner was given citations for having an unlicensed vicious dog and for control of a vicious dog, Saunders said.

The City of Dayton still has a law on the books that considers pit bulls to be vicious animals, he said, even though the state has removed that designation.

"In our mind, a pit bull is still a vicious animal. Regardless of breed, if a dog attacks another dog or person, that in itself defines it as a vicious animal," Saunders said.