SEATTLE -- The owner of two pit bulls that viciously mauled a petite 71-year-old woman pleaded not guilty in court on Wednesday.

Travis D. Cunningham, 36, has been charged with a felony count of possessing a dangerous dog.

King County prosecutors said Cunningham was negligent in allowing the dogs to escape and run free repeatedly, even though he knew they did not like people.

The Sept. 8 pit bull attack was so severe that the victim, Huong Le, 71, thought she was going to die as the dogs sunk their teeth into her leg, arms, face and head and ripped at her flesh.

"I was scared to death. I thought I was going to die, that the dogs would kill me," Le said in a statement to police. "That is what I was thinking in my head."

She tried to crawl under the steps to her SeaTac house, but the dogs kept pulling at her with their teeth. Just as she was about to give up hope, a sheriff's deputy suddenly appeared and said to her, "Lay there, I will get you help."

Then she heard gunshots, as the officer took out his weapon and defended the victim and himself against the dogs, which had turned on him with blood dripping from their mouths and teeth.

"If it had not been for the policeman, I know the dogs would have killed me," Le said later. "They kept coming at me; he saved me from them."

According to court papers filed in the case, the attack began at about 8:20 a.m. as Le was returning from walking her grandchild to the school bus stop.

The two white pit bulls confronted her in her own yard as she walked into her driveway. She told them to "go home," and they began snarling and attacked her, biting her and knocking her down.

She started screaming, but she didn't know if anyone could hear her. A neighbor saw the attack and called 911. Within minutes, a King County sheriff's deputy responded.

"I ran over and saw that the dogs were in top of a small person, biting and pulling at them," the deputy later wrote in his report. "I could see that the person was trying to fight them off and that there was a large amount of blood."

One of the pit bulls looked up as the deputy approached and he could see that its mouth was coated with blood.

Fearing for the victim's life, the deputy fired one shot at the dog, hitting it in the right side. Both dogs then got off the victim, ran a short distance, then turned and faced the deputy. He fired a second shot at the dog that was already hit, killing it.

The other pit bull ran from the scene but confronted another deputy who responded to the 911 call. It was growling, aggressive and its snout was covered in blood. The deputy shot and killed it.

Meanwhile, the first deputy turned his attention to Le, who was covered with deep cuts and lacerations. Medics responded and rushed her to the hospital.

Her injuries were so severe it took doctors 13 hours to treat them, and the wounds are still healing three months later.

An investigation found that the two pit bulls, along with two others, were owned by Cunningham, who has a criminal record dating back to 1993.

Investigators also learned that the dogs had escaped from Cunningham's yard numerous times in the past, according to court documents. The two other pit bulls were confiscated and turned over to an acquaintance of Cunningham's.

A fence surrounded Cunningham's back yard that was 3 or 4 feet high in places, and 6 feet high on other sides. Neighbors said the dogs could easily get over the 4-foot fence.

There was a gate but it had no lock. An electric fence was partially installed but was not functional, nor was it connected to a power source. Investigators also learned that Cunningham was not supposed to have dogs in the yard, under the rental agreement he signed.

Many of Cunningham's neighbors told detectives that they had seen the dogs running loose several times, and that they were sometimes aggressive and barking, according to court papers.

But Cunningham told deputies he did know the dogs had been aggressive, and did not know how they got out of his yard.