On Monday morning, not long after Sarah Murray delivered her three children to school, her neighbours said they saw a dog enter the family’s backyard.
The dog tried to get through the wooden hutch housing the guinea pigs, leaving scratches and teeth-marks in the sides.
It then dug up the lawn, eventually being able to tip the cage over before it attacked the pets.
Ms Murray said she was glad her children had not been in the backyard at the time of the attack.
“It is quite frightening,” she said. “What if the dog had been there with my kids?”
She said she was furious her children had to witness the aftermath of the attack.
Ms Murray’s daughter Mia Bradshaw was the one who discovered the scene after returning home from school.
At first she thought the lifeless guinea pigs were just dried leaves but then she saw the upturned cage.
“I had a closer look and saw they were our guinea pigs,” Mia said. “They had blood on them.”
Ms Murray said they would have died a horrible death, given the extent of the teeth-marks.
“People really need to start taking responsibility for their animals,” she said.
“It is no excuse to say ‘my dog is a Houdini’.
“If you do not have adequate fencing, you should not be able to have a dog.”
The neighbours described the dog as being large, with short, white fur and black or brown markings.
Ms Murray contacted council rangers about the incident, but there was very little they could do without knowing where the dog came from.
Ms Murray said it was a serious issue that there was a dog in the neighbourhood allowed to roam and kill at will.
“Some people just let their dogs run around town and it is wrong,” she said.
It was not the first time such a fate had befallen the Bradshaw children’s pets. A cat killed their pet rabbit.
After this incident Ms Murray said her children would have no more pets because it would be cruel to have the same thing happen for a third time.
(Armidale Express - Nov 21, 2013)
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