For 14 years, Joann Adams has walked the same 3-mile loop in her neighborhood off Gorham Road in Scarborough. But after an incident nearly two weeks ago, she’s not sure if she will ever walk it again.

On July 14, Adams said, she was bitten by one of two pit bulls that charged out of her neighbors’ yard as she was passing by. She received 17 stitches in her leg. Both dogs, who are overdue for rabies shots, were ordered quarantined in their own home for 10 days by the Scarborough Police Department and were released on Tuesday. The owners, Randy and Cheryl Dill, who were cited by police for having dangerous dogs, will go to district court on Aug. 31 to receive the final sentence for themselves and their pets.

At minimum, the Dills are facing a $250 fine, a penalty that Adams and her husband, Scott, think is too lenient. Their concern, however, is not with the severity of the wound or the traumatizing effect of the incident, but with what could have happened – and still can, if the dogs continue to roam the neighborhood.

“The dogs run loose all the time,” Scott Adams said. “This whole neighborhood is a lot of little kids.”

“From day one, the first thing that came into my mind was, ‘Oh my God, what about the kids?'” said Joann Adams. “I don’t want that to happen again.”

But while the Adamses fear another attack, the Dills prepare for the worst, as well – having to put their dogs down.

“We’re probably going to have to get rid of them,” said Cheryl Dill.

Roxie and Jade, the two brown pit bull sisters, both are about 9 years old. Though it has not been determined which one bit Adams, the Dills don’t deny that it happened. They say they’ve never had a problem with either before.

“You couldn’t ask for better dogs,” Cheryl Dill said.

Joann Adams said she’s never had a problem with the dogs, as well. But as she passed by them that Saturday morning with her miniature dachshund, Ruby, she noticed they were in a mesh tent outside, barking loudly and butting their heads against the screening.

According to Adams, as the Dills’ adult daughter, Melissa, who was watching the dogs for her parents, approached the tent, the dogs came barreling past her, headed right for Adams and Ruby. Adams scooped up her dog, looked straight ahead and kept walking.

“I felt one behind me, sniffing,” Adams said. “I didn’t even think it might bite me.”

First, she said, it nipped her twice on the leg. Then, it sunk its teeth in and Adams screamed.

“It was so quick and so sudden and so unexpected,” she said. “I don’t know what provoked this attack at all.”

According to Cheryl Dill, another woman who is about the same size as Adams and who, like Adams, has blonde hair and a small, brown dog, recently threw rocks at the pit bulls when they were barking as she was walking by. Dill thinks her dogs confused Adams for the other woman.

Adams said she never turned around, but kept walking straight to the next closest house, the home of Charles Benner. He drove her to her home on Kala Lane, where her husband called an ambulance.

“I could see bits of flesh,” Joann Adams said. “The blood was saturated through my leggings.”

Though the incident is listed as a dog bite on the police report, written by Officer Robert Pellerin, Scott Adams said he doesn’t refer to it as a bite.

“When it’s a pit bull,” he said, “it’s an attack.”

Animal Control Officer Chris Creps said this was the first complaint he had received about these particular dogs.

“It’s unfortunate that it was this breed, which makes it an even more high-profile thing,” Creps said. He said he considers every dog to be a potential biter, and some of the worst bites he has seen have been from Labrador retrievers.

Creps said some owners of dogs that have bitten people decide on their own to put their dogs down, and the Dills can do that before their court date if they want to.

Cheryl Dill said she has “heard through the grapevine” that that’s what the Adamses want.

“I can’t say, ‘Put them away,'” Joann Adams said. “I know how people love their pets, just like I love my dog.”

“It’s just like a kid to us,” Cheryl Dill said of Jade. Though Roxie has been staying with Randy and Cheryl Dill, the dog actually belongs to their son, who is currently incarcerated in Cumberland County Jail for multiple driving offenses. Roxie and three of their 10 grandchildren are staying with Randy and Cheryl Dill until their son is released at the end of August.

“If I have to do that, I will,” Cheryl Dill said of euthanizing her dogs. “What are we going to do?”

Though, as of Tuesday, the dogs are no longer required to stay inside, Cheryl Dill said she does not plan on letting them roam loose at all. She said she will keep them chained up in the back of their house and work on getting a fence put up, while they decide whether to put them down.

“We’re waiting until my son comes home,” she said. “I want him to be able to say good-bye to his dog.”

Joann and Scott Adams sit on their front porch with their miniature dachshund, Ruby. A week before, Joann Adams was bitten by a pit bull while walking with Ruby on Gorham Road near their home in Scarborough.Joann Adams received 17 stitches after being bitten by a pit bull while walking near her home.