Two Oakland dogs are recovering after a strange and seemingly unprovoked attack at an area dog park last weekend.

According to Robert Selhorst, who is guardian to dogs Carolina, Ruth, and Otis, he had just taken his pups to a vacant lot that serves as a dog park in Oakland's Laurel District last Sunday, when they saw a man with a puppy on the other side of the park fence.

“One of my dogs went under the fence to sniff his dog,” Selhorst tells CBS 5. “My dog’s tail was wagging. He was just sniffing his dog and the guy, like night and day, flipped out.”

Selhorst says that the man, who describes as about 6 feet tall, with a dark complexion, wearing shorts and a Panama hat, "took a nine-inch double-sided knife and started slashing."

"Carolina and Ruth (a.k.a. Cupcake), our two girls, got the worst of it," the dog's co-guardian Elana Kreydick writes. "Otis is fine and Rob got nicked on the forehead trying to get them to safety, and is fine physically."

The suspect then "picked up his puppy and ran," Selhorst says.

Though injured, the dogs are expected to recover. "Thank God for the Oakland Animal Shelter, the paramedics, and the Oakland Police Department for their prompt response time, without which we may be looking at a very different outcome," Kreydick writes.

As of publication time, Carolina and Ruth have returned home, after days of care by veterinarians at the Oakland Animal Shelter. Both apparently remained in good spirits throughout. "The man who helped us said that he has never seen dogs go through something so traumatic and still be so happy," Kreydick writes.

But while the dogs are now recovering, their guardians are still shaken.

“No one wants to see that,” Selhorst tells CBS 5. “Watch a guy cut your dogs like they were meat. It’s the most, worst, horrible thing I’ve ever had to see.”

Meanwhile, the suspect remains at large, Kreydick remains hopeful that he will be found. "There was a police report filed," she writes, "and the shelter is pursuing animal cruelty charges."

"It's hard because they do not have the man in custody, but hopefully he is found and brought to justice for this horrific crime."