New Zealand: Dogs attack miniature horses, said to be "hanging off his face". Hmm, what kinds of dogs like to do that when they're attacking and killing livestock??

NEW ZEALAND -- When a screaming horse roused Sarah Ogle she rushed outside only to discover three of her miniature horses covered in blood and dog bites.

Although she never saw them, two wandering dogs had attacked the horses in their pens shortly before dawn on July 1. The dogs have not yet been found.

On Monday, the baby of the trio, Kit, was put down because of an infection from his injuries.

Yearling Kit collapsed on Monday as an infection 

took hold. He was later euthanized.

Ogle, who lives with her family on a farm at Normanby, said the same dogs are believed to have killed two sheep on a neighboring property and attacked a blind dog at another address that same night. She now feels under siege and fears they will come back.

"My kids won't go out, they normally go out right on dark to bring in the wood and they won't they have to do it in daylight, and they usually pushbike over the farm but they won't do that either.

"Even me, I'm in and out of the stables all the time in the dark if I hear a noise. I'm always out there. I went out there in the dark and it was flippin' scary.

"If those dogs are out there, what am I going to do? I went and bought a big heavy torch and I'm carrying my pocket knife."

Ogle's sister's children next door were also afraid to leave their property, she said.

Since the attack she had added extra mesh and doors to the stables to keep her eight horses secure.

The injured horses were recovering well, but Ogle is anxious for the dogs to be caught in case they attack again.

The dogs would have arrived home covered in blood from their killing spree.

"Someone must know where they are."

She said her nightmare began when her pregnant mare, Mia, woke her up "screaming blue murder."

"I ran to the window. It  was pitch black and all I could see was a horse in the paddock where it's not supposed to be."

She ran to the stables where she found Kit weaving on his feet. "I grabbed him, he was covered in blood. We bundled him into a stable and wrapped a towel around him."

As she tried to stop the young horse's bleeding and waited for the vet, her son moved the other horses into another pen.

The vet arrived and Kit underwent emergency surgery.

"They had been hanging off his face, we had to hold his face together, he was losing a lot of blood.

"They took a big chunk out of his chest between his legs and pretty much gouged out the top of one of his legs and he had punctures pretty much everywhere. We were working on his worst ones and as we'd clip around them, you'd keep finding more holes."

Dark Hunter, Ogle's show horse, had a split on his chin and lacerations on his face and legs. Paris, who is in foal, had deep wounds inside both front legs.

"The vet said it looks like they've clamped on, one either side, and hung on to the front of her legs. She refused to walk for a few days."

WHAT KINDS OF DOGS LIKE TO GRIP AND HANG FROM VICTIMS' FACES?

Mia, the matriarch, was covered in blood but uninjured. Ogle thinks she was attacking the dogs to protect her herd.

Ogle's sister, Joanne White, said she had been woken about 3.15am by snarls and howls from her backyard as two strange dogs tried to attack her dog through the fence around his kennel.

"It sounded like wolves fighting, like they were killing each other."

White's husband yelled out the window and the dogs, a big tan animal and a slightly smaller black one, fled.

Although they didn't hear any more noise, the dogs had gone next door and killed two sheep.

Later, they returned to the pens where Ogle's horses were stabled.

She said she had received help from the the miniature horse community to pay her vet bills.

South Taranaki District Council regulatory service manager Doug Scott said the council was keen to find the dogs responsible.

"Our main concern is to stop this happening again, get these dogs off the street. We're very keen to work with any person who knows where they are," he said.

"When the owner yelled and the dogs ran away, that tells me they're unlikely to attack a person, but it's really hard to say and I wouldn't trust them."

The council was currently prosecuting a dog owner over a different incident where some cattle were attacked, he said. The dogs involved in that attack were shot by the farmer.

(Stuff NZ - July 8, 2017)