In a horrifying heartbeat, her instinct to intervene and save her dog Lola from a vicious attack by an Alsatian had resulted in her own fingers being savaged when the dog turned on her.
The resulting wounds were so severe that Katie, a former model whose legs were once used in a Pretty Polly advertisement, lost two fingertips and, although they were salvaged and stitched back on, they still cause her great pain more than six months later and she does not have full sensation or movement.
It has turned my world upside down,’ she says.
‘For weeks after the attack I couldn’t dress myself or brush my teeth or even open a tin of food — if it wasn’t for my boyfriend Franco I would never have coped. I’m still in pain and need physiotherapy, and the psychological legacy has been huge.
I had to take tranquilisers for a month after the attack to calm my nerves and I suffer terrible flashbacks.’
Lola, a 14-year-old weimaraner who suffered a deep neck wound in the attack remains traumatised, too, so nervous it is only in the past fortnight Katie has been able to take her for a walk again.
Hers is certainly a chilling story, not only because of its very ordinary backdrop, but also because of the issues it raises: the owner of the dog that savaged Katie was uninsured, so she has been unable to claim any compensation for loss of earnings and the huge distress caused by her injuries.
Fateful Day
It happened one evening when the still-warm sun persuaded Katie to take her dog for a brief walk to the bottom of her road and back.
'I heard a snarl, and then the other dog got Lola by the throat'
It is a favourite stroll on which she frequently meets other local dog walkers, among them a woman in her 60s with a young Alsatian cross, with whom she always exchanged pleasantries. This evening, their paths crossed again, just as Katie was about to turn into the driveway of her home.
‘We said a quick hello, the dogs were wagging their tails, then in a split second it all changed,’ Katie says, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I heard a snarl, and then the other dog got Lola by the throat. Her owner was trying to wrestle her off but she wouldn’t let go.
‘Lola fell to the floor, with blood spurting from her neck. I desperately tried to pull the other dog away by pushing at its rear end, while the owner was trying to wrestle with her, too, but she would not be moved.’
What happened next, she says, was instinctive: ‘I thought she was going to kill Lola, so I got hold of the dog’s collar with my left hand and with my right hand went to pull her head away. They say never get between two dogs fighting but I couldn’t see Lola suffer like that. That’s when the other dog turned on me and bit my right hand.’
It was at this point that the owner was finally able to pull her away. ‘My only thought was for Lola,’ says Katie. ‘I got my coat and put it over her throat to stem the blood flow. Only then did I realise there was blood everywhere and that a lot of it was mine. It was followed by a searing pain. I looked down and realised the dog had bitten off the tops of my index and middle fingers.’
One was hanging by a thread, the other bitten clean off and lying on the ground, where Katie had to scoop it up.
(Daily Mail UK - Nov 25, 2012)
