A third violent dog attack in the past month has left a nine-year-old Island Grove boy with lacerations and bruises.

Cody Owens was playing with friends April 15 when a lab mix that had escaped from its pen charged at him.

Cody's mother, Betty, said she had seen the dog running loose and, fearing for the safety of children outside, tried to distract it.

When Cody heard his mother, he came to the end of the driveway and, wondering what was happening, yelled, "What, mom?"

That's when the male dog, described as "muscular", spotted him and attacked.

"He was growling and he knocked me down. Then he started biting me on the head. I kicked him and he ran away," Cody said.

With Cody bleeding and in pain, his parents took him to Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket, where he was anesthetized before treatment.

"The doctors said they wanted him put out because of what he'd been through," Ms Owens said.

The slightly-built boy needed 10 stitches to close the gash on his forehead and head, three stitches in his torn eyebrow and a bandage over a puncture wound in his arm where the dog's claw raked him. His face was swollen and both his eyes were bruised and puffy.

"It all happened so fast," Ms Owens said. Dog attacks are becoming more frequent and she is worried it is only a matter of time before a child is killed.

The dog was taken to the Georgina animal shelter where it was quarantined.

The dog's owner has apologized and agreed to have the animal destroyed, Ms Owens said.

As for Cody, the attack hasn't left him afraid of dogs. The Owens family has two canines.

"I'm not afraid of dogs, just that one," he said.

In other recent attacks, Barbara Cripps and her dog Rex were injured by two dogs running loose in Keswick and Kevin Sarasin was badly mauled by a large Tibetan mastiff in Pefferlaw two weeks ago.