WINDHAM – Brady Chase, like many 3-year-olds, enjoys playing with his cousins and riding his bike. His favorite color changes weekly – for now, it’s blue.

But there is plenty about Brady that sets him apart from others. He’s got an extraordinary family, including a 13-year-old cousin, Keegan Pennington, who has spent the past month thinking up ways to raise money for Brady, and a grandfather and mother who have set aside other obligations to care for the boy.

About a month ago, Brady was attacked by a family dog and now must undergo multiple reconstructive surgeries to repair the damage to his right cheek and mouth, now criss-crossed with scars from where the black Labrador mix bit him on July 7. No one knows what provoked the attack.

“After he woke up from the surgery, I called him, ‘My handsome boy,’ and he said, ‘I’m not handsome.’ He looks every day at his face. But it’s gotten better. The other day someone told him he was handsome and he said, ‘Yes,’” said Tammy Francoeur, Brady’s grandmother.

Family, friends and unknown members of the community have rallied around the family, donating money, bottles and even buying $90 glasses of lemonade.

“There was a guy who rode up on a bike the other night. We were sitting outside and he came up. He’d been at the lemonade stand but he wanted to come back and donate more,” said Brady’s grandfather, David Francoeur, on the $90 glass of lemonade.

David Francoeur said so far, the family has raised more than $4,000 to help with the cost of surgeries and getting the family to Boston’s Children Hospital and back, where the multiple facial reconstructive plastic surgeries will take place. Francoeur, and Brady’s mother, Lillian Parsons, have both taken off work to help care for the boy while he recovers from the attack.

Brady lives in Windham with his mother and two other siblings. On July 7 he was visiting his grandparents and cousins at their house on Spring Street in Westbrook.

“No one really knows what happened. He was alone,” said Francoeur.

Brady was sitting on a couch looking at pictures on an iPad while other members of the family were in different rooms of the house. After only a few moments alone, Amanda Moody, Brady’s aunt, heard a growl, according to the family. When Moody came back into the room, Brady was on a different couch covering his face in his hands.

Pennington was also in the house at the time and saw his young cousin.

“It was just teeth and gums,” Pennington said.

The boy was taken to Maine Medical Center, where his wounds were cleaned out and the healing process began. The dog was euthanized.

“He said he didn’t do anything. It’s hard to understand. He was a family pet. We had him since he was 6 weeks old. He was raised with children. He lived with four children,” Francoeur said.

Brady had been around the dog since he was only a few months old.

“Brady really enjoyed the dogs. I’ve seen her [the dog] protect the kids, but I’ll never trust any dog 100 percent again. They are animals,” Francoeur said.

Other members of the family agree that their perception of the domestic animals has changed and they’ve noticed the other two family dogs, pit-bull mixes, nipping more. Whether it’s just because they are more on guard or because something else happened the day Brady was attacked, the family said that’s a hard call.

Brady’s family has noticed the boy has developed a fear of dogs that look like the black lab-mix that attacked him.

“You hear about it, but you don’t think it’s going to happen to you,” said Parsons.

In the meantime, Pennington and other friends and family, including Zack Clark, 13, Trenton Nash, 11, and Ian Nash, 7, began to brainstorm ways to help their young friend.

“My Pepe [Francoeur] told me we were doing a fundraiser and I told him I’d try to help out,” Pennington said.

First came the bottle drive. The large bottle bin, painted black, sits on Francoeur’s front yard with a sign that reads “Help Brady.” So far, they’ve had to empty the receptacle twice.

Pennington and his friends also started a lemonade stand with a goal of raising $10. By the end of the day, they had raised more than $500.

“We just told people we were doing a fundraiser for my cousin who was attacked by a dog. We got a lot of donations,” Pennington said.

Josh Gaudreau lives up the road from Francoeur and dropped off a load of bottles to the family last Thursday afternoon.

“I saw someone needed help and they could use it more than I could,” Gaudreau said.

Gaudreau isn’t alone in wanting to help support the family in need. Windham Weaponry donated $2,600 to Brady’s recovery, the bottle drive has collected more than $600 in donated cans and bottles, and even a neighboring family set up another lemonade stand last weekend and donated all their proceeds to Brady.

The family is also selling Dunkin’ Donuts coupon books, and on Sept. 14 will hold a car wash in the First Baptist Church parking lot on Main Street across from Cumberland Farms gas station in Westbrook. Donations are also being accepted through an online credit union site.

“It was a tragic and horrible thing that happened to Brady. He’s 3 years old. He needs to recover from this and needs help getting through it,” Francoeur said.

Three-year-old Brady Chase, playing this week at Riverbank Park in Westbrook, needs reconstructive surgery after being bitten by a pet dog one month ago. “I’ll never trust any dog 100 percent again,” says David Francoeur, holding his grandson, Brady Chase. The boy was bitten by a family dog and faces several reconstructive surgeries.Brady flexes some impressive muscles at the park.

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