Prize Akita sinks teeth into stranger and mauls another dog just hours after winning Crufts rosette... for obedience

UNITED KINGDOM -- The Crufts ‘Good Citizen’ award is reserved for the most obedient and well-trained dog – so you would expect only the best of behavior from the winner.

But last year’s victor Eddie – a brown and snow-white Akita – disgraced the title just hours after claiming it.

As the award winner was posing with his proud owner for photographs he suddenly lunged at a nearby woman, sinking his teeth into her knee and hand.

Former accountant Louise Nelson was left needing surgery on her knee and with permanent nerve damage to her hand.

Eddie the Akita

A district judge at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court found Eddie’s owner Lorain Ronis, 52, guilty of allowing a dog to be dangerously out of control in a public place.

Mrs Ronis, a dog trainer  and dog walker, claims witnesses exaggerated the attack because they were fierce rivals on the  dog circuit and wanted her out  of the way.

The court heard she was posing with her five-year-old dog for a celebratory picture after he triumphed in the Good Citizen Dog category. But Eddie took a dislike to a nearby Akita called Banks and sprang forward.

After being pulled away by his owner he lunged a second time, clamping Miss Nelson’s kneecap in his jaws.

She told the court she feared her kneecap would be ripped off during the six-second attack on March 8 last year during the Crufts show at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre.

Miss Nelson, 33, an experienced dog owner who has been attending shows for 13 years, said: ‘I tried to get out of the way but it grabbed hold of my knee and was shaking my kneecap.’

As she attempted to free herself she also received a bite to the hand. Witness June Watson said she saw Mrs Ronis and Eddie standing ‘too close’ to the other Akita.

She said: ‘There was a little bit of contact [between the dogs] and then they were separated. The lady on the bench [Miss Nelson] stood up and it [Eddie] went towards her and grabbed her leg.’

Denying the offence Mrs Ronis, from Luton, said her dog had never been aggressive and claimed the other Akita had attacked first.

She said: ‘Eddie was never dangerous or out of control. She suffered her injury by getting between two dogs.’

Mrs Ronis claims that Miss Nelson had told her at the time ‘dogs will be dogs, don’t worry about it’.

‘If I had known then how this was going to unravel I would have got more witnesses,’ she said.

During the trial it was revealed Miss Nelson, from County Durham, had been sacked from her accountant’s job after stealing £10,000 from her employer and had pleaded guilty to 11 counts of fraud by abuse of position.



Lorain Ronis (above), 52, was found guilty of
letting Eddie be dangerously out of control in public

She was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for 12 months.

Mrs Ronis claimed Miss Nelson’s need for money to repay her employer was behind the allegation. She also claimed  that the other witnesses were fierce rivals on the dog show  circuit. ‘They are my competitors, they don’t like me,’ she  told the court.

Convicting Mrs Ronis of the offence, district judge Ian Strongman said he found Eddie had caused the injuries to Miss Nelson, but made no order to have the dog destroyed.

He said: ‘I’m satisfied when the dog started misbehaving Mrs Ronis tried her best to pull it back.’

He adjourned the case for sentence until August 14.

(Daily Mail - Jul 25, 2014)