Sunday, July 31, 2011

Call for dogs to be kept on leads after cat killed

UNITED KINGDOM -- A fresh call has been made for ‘dangerous dogs’ to be kept on leads after a family pet was killed in Park North.

Sox the cat was fatally injured after being savaged by a dog on Wednesday night and her condition was so bad she had to be put down by vets, leaving her family distraught.

Owner Carol Gray has now hit out at the dog’s owner saying that a child could have been on the receiving end of the dog’s bloodlust, and that young men with powerful, status-symbol dogs must not let them roam free.

It comes just days after the Adver reported a similar attack by two Staffordshire bull terriers in Taw Hill on a pug belonging to Rachel Sparrow, which also left Rachel with the threat of losing a finger.

After the latest incident, a Facebook group has been set up calling for such dogs to be kept on leashes.

“I was sat in the kitchen, and I could hear a man shouting: stop it, come on, stop it! There was snarling,” said Miss Gray, 42, of Tyndale Gardens.

“I opened the gate and saw this bloke struggling and shouting. Sox was pinned at the edge of the kerb against the fence.

“I went to grab Sox, and she wasn’t moving. Just her head. She was just lashing out with her mouth, she didn’t know what was going on.

“At the time my youngest daughter went to the neighbour to get help and saw the man walking by with the dog. It still wasn’t on a lead.”

The man was in his late teens, with fair hair, and walked off in the direction of Eldene. His dog is believed to have been a Staffordshire terrier, and was white with brown patches.

The 17-year-old cat was crushed by the dog’s weight, and suffered internal injuries leaving her unable to walk.

Miss Gray’s daughters, 13-year-old Jess, and Emma, 16, are having trouble coming to terms with the attack.

“They’re withdrawn, they’re not themselves,” she said.

Emma has now set up a Facebook page to gather support for a law to keep dangerous dogs in check.

Within half-an-hour of setting it up, it had received 28 supportive comments.

Miss Gray, who works as a receptionist at Great Western Hospital, said: “That man couldn’t control that dog. He was fighting with it to get it off my cat.

“That man needs to be shamed. When that dog attacked my cat he just walked off.

“This man didn’t even stop to ask was my cat ok. He was gone within seconds.

“Something has to be done about these dogs. That could have been a child. All we see is these young blokes going around with these dogs. All it does is make them feel good because they’ve got these powerful dogs.”

(Swindon Advertiser - July 31, 2011)