Maria Calleja was walking her two French poodles near her house in Deer Park earlier this month when the eldest, 18-year-old Jacques, put his nose near a hole in a house fence to smell the grass.
But the dog at the house, believed to be a pit bull terrier, grabbed hold of Jacques with his mouth.
When Ms Calleja heard a thump, she ran over and hit the other dog on the head.
"There was no face," she told radio station 3AW. "I started screaming."
Ms Calleja said Jacques had not put his nose into the fence and he was smelling the grass nearby.
Ms Calleja said Jacques' face had been ripped off from about 2.5 centimetres below his eyes. She said she was forced to wait three hours before the dog could be euthanased at the Werribee animal hospital. The dog remained conscious until then.
[Why did she sit there for THREE HOURS?! She should be charged with cruelty for just sitting there and letting him suffer. Does she not have a car? Would no one take her to a vet?!]
Police were phoned, she said, but they told her the local Brimbank council was the authority responsibility. The council said it was powerless because the attack happened on private property.
"Jacques still had a lot of life," Ms Calleja said. "If he had have passed away of old age that's one thing, but to die in the way he did ..."
Ms Calleja said she could not afford the $750 cremation bill on her pension.
A Brimbank Council spokeswoman confirmed the council was called to an incident involving an injured poodle that was being walked by its owner.
She said the council was continuing to investigate the matter and had spoken to the owner of the poodle and the owner of the dog in question from the property adjoining the footpath.
The dog involved was a registered de-sexed American Staffordshire terrier, she said.
(Warrnambool Standard - April 15, 2013)
