PITTSBURGH — A woman was on a run with her dog on the sidewalk along Smallman Street near the intersection with 11th Street, Tuesday afternoon, when she said she and her dog were being electrically shocked.
“That’s absolutely horrifying,” said Jennifer Moore who works in the Strip District.
Montana Mitchell posted photos of and her dog, Denim, on social media after were shocked while on a run Tuesday.
“That’s so scary, and I hope the city does take it seriously,” Moore said.
Mitchell told Channel 11 she isn’t ready to talk about the situation on camera but said she heard her dog scream, and then watched he lost control of his body, dropping to the ground shaking.
She hurried to rip off his collar. Then she said she heard buzzing and took off her watch and ear buds. She and her husband rushed their dog to the vet. She tells me he is okay, but sleepy. Mitchell went to the emergency room Tuesday night and is also okay.
“I don’t feel unsafe walking around or anything, but it should be looked into, right? Because you don’t want that to continue,” said Pete Rauch of Pittsburgh.
The city tells Channel 11 it has already started an investigation.
“In the last couple hours, we’ve begun an immediate investigation to understand what happened,” said Dan Gilman, Chief of Staff to Mayor Corey O’Connor. “The pole has been and was several days ago immediately taken offline and so it is no longer a live pole. There’s no immediate threat to the public with that at all.”
Two years ago this week, Channel 11 told you a man was walking his dog on the Murray Avenue Bridge in Squirrel Hill when his dog stepped on a metal plate that had been electrified.
His dog died.
“Though it does not appear they were the same type of incident, the bottom line is there’s too many similarities and we need to get to the bottom of why this keeps happening in this city,” Gilman said.
Gilman said consultants at the time recommended Pittsburgh inspect every street light owned by the city. Gilman said those inspections were never done under the previous administration.
“So we gave a directive today to begin immediately implementing the entire plan that was issued previously, including an immediate survey of all street lights, poles, mast heads, etc. to make sure we’re seeing if there are any other threats that we can find out there,” Gilman said.
Right now the city says it does not have an exact cause as to why this happened, but said there is no immediate threat to anyone walking along the sidewalk. ,
Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.
Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW
©2026 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/XCUXZC2XYZHCRGNNGKFEX6U3LQ.png)
