A puppy reportedly had its face ripped off after it was violently attacked by another dog while on a walk in the park. Lesley McGowan had taken her two dogs, Jasper and Jolene, on a walk in Dovecot Park, Liverpool, when a dog came charging towards them.
The dog, which Lesley believes to be a 'Staffordshire Bull Terrier or an XL Bully cross', attacked 11-month-old, Jolene at around 10pm on Saturday March 26. The Griffon Bruxellois suffered horrific injuries to her face and was taken to a nearby vets, where she sadly died the following morning.
Lesley has decided to speak about the ordeal as she hopes Jolene's story will encourage dog owners to be more responsible, reports The Liverpool Echo.
She said: "It was about 10pm on Saturday and we walked over to Dovecot Park. It was dark, and as soon as we walked through the gate I saw this dog charging towards me out of nowhere.
"I couldn’t see the lad at first, because the dog was further up and off his lead, but I screamed to him ‘get your dog, get your dog’. Then he came running over, I had to let my other dog Jasper go, because Jolene had ran around my ankles a couple of times and tangled me up in the lead - she was wanting me to save her.
"I had to let Jasper go because I then fell to my knees and I was trying to get up. The fella then came over because the dog had grabbed Jolene by the face and it had her by the snout.
"I was shouting ‘get it off, it’s killing her’ and he was saying ‘no it’s not’. Then he started trying to get his dog off." The man's dog had its jaws around Jolene, so Lesley had to put her hands in the dog's mouth in order to prise its jaws open.
She added: "My dog was screaming like anything and I thought she’d died, but she just fainted. I still had hold of her but I was still tangled in the lead, so I was trying to pull her out of its mouth.
"She had a broken leg and her face was gone, and had a broken jaw. It bit right through Jolene and bit her jaw completely off and that’s how she ended up getting free."
Lesley ran back home with Jolene in her arms, thinking that she had died. The man is then believed to have left the park with his dog after the attack. She drove to the Medivet on Alder Road and Jolene came around on the journey. Lesley then handed Jolene over to vets, who sedated her.
Lesley said: "I just sat there in the vets, I didn’t know what to say or do. When I got home, I was just waiting for the phone call."
She reported the incident to police and heard back from the vet on Sunday. She added: "They phoned me the next day and said she had survived the operation but her heartbeat had gone down and she ended up dying on Sunday morning. I had to break it to the kids that she died and they were devastated."
Lesley was told by the vet that they had seen three dogs, including Jolene, injured in attacks in the previous 12 hours. Though she can't get the brutal images and her dog's screams out of her mind, Lesley wants to raise awareness of the incident to ensure that it isn't repeated.
She said: "His dog wasn’t on a lead. My dog was on her lead and she didn’t have a chance. I’m almost sure it was an XL Bully, it looked like it was on steroids, it was huge. I told police it was either a Staffordshire Bull Terrier or an XL Bully cross.
"People need to have their dogs on a lead and have some thought for others. There are kids playing there and dogs like my little one - they stand no chance with these bigger dogs, especially if they’re off the lead."
Merseyside Police confirmed that an investigation is ongoing following a reported dog attack in Dovecot on Saturday. A police spokesperson added that the owner of what was believed at the time to be a Staffordshire bull terrier left the park with his dog after the incident.
Officers are currently carrying out witness enquiries in the area and an investigation is underway.
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