Police said a 13-year-old boy was attacked by “a Pit Bull-type dog” on Lonsdale Road in Armagh on Saturday evening. The boy was taken to hospital for treatment and police seized the dog.
One man was arrested and was yesterday released on police bail, pending a report to the prosecution service.
The injured boy, Eoin Toal, was setting off for pizza with some friends to celebrate one of their birthdays.
“We were just walking down the street and this man with the dog asked us for directions to the bus depot,” Eoin told the News Letter.
“And then his dog just took out on us. It was stuck on my leg for about 10 seconds. My friend kicked it on the head and then it let go.”
He said it was a “small fat dog”. His injuries were so severe that they left his father in shock.
Eoin does not yet know for certain how well he will recover. Yesterday he was transferred from Craigavon Area Hospital to the Ulster Hospital for specialist treatment.
“The pain is really bad,” he said.
Eoin’s father, Declan, said he was going public on the issue “because I don’t want any other children going through this”.
“Anyone who owns a dog like that, it should be muzzled. It is not a dog for children. I have a wee girl of seven and if it had got a hold of her face she would have been destroyed.”
He said his son has severe injuries down one side of his leg and is likely to require skin grafts.
“We think he will make a full recovery,” he said.
“The first thing I knew about it was when Eoin rang me to tell me he had been bitten by a dog. I thought, ‘it’s a dog bite, how bad can it be?’ But when I saw the extent of his injuries I felt sick and was in a state of shock.”
Maeve Kelly’s son is Eoin’s best friend and was with him at the time of the attack.
“After the dog let go, Eoin kept asking ‘am I going to die?’” she said. “It was my son that kicked the dog and got it to let go. Eoin said afterwards that he had saved his life.”
She said the boys were in a group of five and were left sick and deeply traumatised.
“They are now very worried about walking up the street,” she said.
“Eoin is an absolutely fantastic footballer and had just captained Armagh U13s to win the league earlier that day.”
William Irwin MLA thanked police for their “swift intervention”.
He added: “I understand that the dog has now been put down which of course under these circumstances is absolutely the correct and only course of action.”
A spokesman for Armagh City Council said that the dog was not a Pit Bull, but a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, which is lawful to own. A spokesman said the dog showed no sign of aggression whatsoever with council staff, but was humanely destroyed yesterday because it had committed an attack.
A USPCA spokesman said it is now an arrestable offence to have an outlawed breed or to have a “dangerously out of control” dog, regardless of the breed.
(News Letter - Jan 31, 2012)