Carol Mason was walking Pip, her Plummer Terrier, along the usual route near her home in Forest Hall, North Tyneside, when a French Mastiff savagely set upon the unsuspecting pooch.
Instinct kicked in and Carol attempted to save Pip from the powerful dog’s jaw only to be bitten herself.
As Carol stood screaming with blood pouring down her face, the owner of the offending dog didn’t make any attempt to try and control the situation and walked off without even apologising or checking if she was all right.
Carol is now appealing for people who think they might know the man in question to come forward and tell the police so something can be done before the dog strikes again.
The 61-year-old said: “I can honestly say I have never been so petrified in my life as I was when this happened. I want this man found and prosecuted. I want him to realise what he has done to me and my dog. If this had happened to a child they wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
The attack happened shortly after 7am on Friday morning when Carol was out walking Pip along her regular daily route behind Bellway industrial Estate on Whitley Road.
She was making her way home when she spotted a man with two French Mastiffs, who she recognised as they had bothered Pip on earlier occasions.
To avoid confrontation she tried to walk around them but despite her efforts one of the dogs came bounding towards her.
“I noticed one of the dogs was off the lead so I scooped Pip up and walked across the field away from them but I turned and saw the dog was coming towards me,” she said.
The mum-of-five added: “The bloke called his dog and he initially turned to go away but then when I looked back again he was doing a U-turn and the next thing I knew I felt my dog was being pulled out of my arms by his tail.
“I was screaming at this man to do something, I was hysterical but he never spoke a word and didn’t even run over.
“The dog was having a go at Pip on the floor and I was shouting at the man that he was going to kill my dog but the bloke didn’t seem that bothered, he was trying a bit but not hard enough.
“I don’t really know what happened next but I saw it come for me so I stepped back and started screaming and began to walk away.”
By this point Pip had managed to run away to safety so Carol started frantically looking for her pet completely unaware that the tan-coloured French Mastiff had taken a chunk out of her eyebrow.
She said: “I put my hand across my face and I just thought it was slaver or tears but when I took my hand away it was covered in blood. I turned back to the man and said ‘look at what you’ve done’ and he just said nothing.”
Carol managed to find Pip and make her way home where her daughter Julie Bourne met her and rushed her to Rake Lane hospital. She was told that had the injury been a centimetre further down she could have lost her eye. Pip was also left with gashes to his tail and neck and he has been prescribed with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory tablets.
Carol, who lives with husband Kevin, said the attacking dog’s owner was of medium height, in his 40s, stocky with short dark hair.
The dog that attacked Carol and Pip is a tan colour and the other French Mastiff is a brindle colour pattern.
(Sky Tyne and Wear - Aug 12, 2013)
