UNITED KINGDOM -- A dog walker claims she was punched in the face in a spat between two pet owners on Mousehold Heath.
Stephanie Adams said she was walking her two Kerry Blue Terriers on the morning on Sunday June 9 by Lavengro Road.
She let one of them, Parker, off the lead when a white Staffordshire Bull Terrier attacked it.
“A large white Staffy charged at him,” she said. “It knocked him over and stood over him with its nose against his belly.”
Mrs Adams, who lives near the heath, said she grabbed the Staffy by its harness pulling it away from her dog.
“I lifted it up and hung it in the air so it couldn’t bite him,” she said.
The dog’s owner then appeared and Mrs Adams said the owner hit her in the face and grabbed the dog.
The 46-year-old added: “I wouldn’t let go of the dog and I was screaming for someone to get the police. I was really quite traumatised. It happened very quickly. I was screaming for help but no-one was around.”
My dog then jumped up and bit the Staffy on the back.”
While the women were tussling over the Staffy, three men heard the screaming and called the police.
Officers arrived and the Staffy’s owner denied that she had hit Mrs Adams.
They took statements from the two parties.
Mrs Adams said: “It was only that I reacted so quickly that my dog was saved.”
A police spokeswoman said: “We were called to reports of a disturbance between two dogs and their owners on Lavengro Road at around 11.40am on Sunday June 9. Officers spoke to both owners and there was no evidence to suggest any criminal offences had taken place.”
It is the latest in a series of dog attacks around Norwich.
In May, Dillon, a six-year-old Staffordshire bull terrier was set upon by a rottweiler and a Staffordshire cross pit bull in William Mear Gardens, close to Lion Wood, while in February Pat McAndrews, 66, from Douro Place, off Dereham Road, saw her dog Jazz attacked near her home.
Meanwhile in January Lesley Smith’s guide dog, Unis, was attacked outside the Back of the Inns entrance to the Castle Mall by a dog described as a ‘bull terrier-type’.
(Norwich Evening News - June 28, 2013)