We have just had the most dreadful weekend of our life's. Here is a link telling what has happened to us. www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/n ... k_by_dogs/ The woman has been charged, but the dog which bit my child and ripped my dogs guts out is still with the owner. The police have no power to take it away. I am desperate to do something about this. I have never begged any one for anything in my life. But i am begging any of you who think you may be able to help me in any way. I want to do something about this. How do i go about getting a petition going/ How can i go about getting my PM do get involved in this?

We have just had the most dreadful weekend of our life's. Here is a link telling what has happened to us. www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/n ... k_by_dogs/ The woman has been charged, but the dog which bit my child and ripped my dogs guts out is still with the owner. The police have no power to take it away. I am desperate to do something about this. I have never begged any one for anything in my life. But i am begging any of you who think you may be able to help me in any way. I want to do something about this. How do i go about getting a petition going/ How can i go about getting my PM do get involved in this?

Thank\you for that. I have also put the right one in.

They cannot get involved as its now in the hands of the police.

My main problem is as the law stand the police have no power to take this dog away.

If any dog attacked mine in that way, I'd be inclined to get a shotgun, put one shell through the dog and the second one through the owner

Seems to be a lack of clear procedure in such cases. It appears that you'd have been better off if your daughter was walking your pet sheep instead of your pet dog. rlCPS Guidelinesrl

By Pit Bull types I'm guessing they were Staffords??? First of all the police do have the powers to take the dogs if they believe they are pit bulls or pit bull types. They will then be assesed by a tape measure to see if they were pure pit bulls or Staffords. The only time the police cannot do anything is if the attack happened on private property which in this case it happened in a public park. I would be in touch with the police and ask them why the two dogs which attacked yours (which are potentially a banned breed under the Dangerous Dogs Act) are still with the owner and why haven't they been seized under the DDA Section 1 - Banned Breed. My guess is that the police believe them to be Staffords. The DDA is worth a read: www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1991/65/contents I am sorry for your loss.

By Pit Bull types I'm guessing they were Staffords??? First of all the police do have the powers to take the dogs if they believe they are pit bulls or pit bull types. They will then be assesed by a tape measure to see if they were pure pit bulls or Staffords. The only time the police cannot do anything is if the attack happened on private property which in this case it happened in a public park. I would be in touch with the police and ask them why the two dogs which attacked yours (which are potentially a banned breed under the Dangerous Dogs Act) are still with the owner and why haven't they been seized under the DDA Section 1 - Banned Breed. My guess is that the police believe them to be Staffords. The DDA is worth a read: www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1991/65/contents I am sorry for your loss.

One of my wifes work collegues had their Jack Russell killed by a larger dog at the weekend too, the police won't get involved at all because it was a dog on dog attack.

More importantly I hope your daughter is physically ok and that she copes mentally with this horrendous attack, must have been awful for her.

Have you contacted your MP ?

What an awful story, that must have been horrific. Surely if one of the Dogs has also attacked your daughter then something more should be done about it? although attacking your dog in such a way should warrant something being done in itself.

I try not to walk my Dog through park's and "busier" routes now because there are so many irresponsible dog owners out there who either don't keep there Dogs on leads or simply aren't capable of controlling them, a few have gone for him in the past and it's not nice. From reading the article it seems as if the woman who had the 2 dogs simply wasn't strong enough to control them both, I've seen parents around here letting kids take hold of large dogs often bigger than them and it's quite horrifying to think what could happen if the dog went off on one.

I hope you get some sort of justice for what has happened. only 2 weeks ago a Dog near me was "destroyed" after it bit a young lad.

So get where you're coming from there. A few weeks ago we went to a Country Park with our two. We don't let them off in there, simply because I have a lurcher and if she hunts down a rabbit she will be missing for hours. I normally have them on head collars to help me control them but in the Country Park we have them on extending leads (the only place I will use those horrible things though). Coming in behind was a beautiful Shar Pei puppy about 6 months old, off lead. He came running upto our two on leads, I expected the usual dog greets and then the owner to call him back as our two were on lead. Instead this bouncy puppy (who was in no way at fault) so wanted to play and kept harassing ours, which in normal off lead circumstances would be great. My Staffy/cross will tell another dog if he harasses her and she did just that. Again we were expecting the owner to call him back, but no, not a word. In the end we had to deviate from the path and walk across a field just to let them get ahead of us as I didn't want my staffy/cross to snap because she'd had enough of being harassed. The owner and young son, who thought this was a game every time the puppy ran to ours neither said or did nothing. Totally irresponsible imo and should be made to go to classes to learn some dog etiquette manners.

I hate it when newspapers use the phrase "pit bull type" as if that is a catch-all explanantion for the attack.

There is no doubt in anyones mind that in recent years there has been an explosion in the Staffordshire Bull terrier breed, and cross breed variations thereof - and its the indiscriminate and uncontrolled breeding of the dogs that causes the problem - that and the owners who don't know how to, or are just not interested in controlling them, or worse still actively encourage their dog to be aggressive.

I know that there is nothing wrong with the Staffie as a breed and I know that there are plenty of examples of great family Staffies out there, I have a German Shepherd which is another breed that has had a reputation in the past and when I'm walking him you still hear comments from parents to children about how "fierce that big dog looks", truth is that he is castrated and has not an ounce of aggression in him.

Having said that I'm like HWS above in that I do not let him off the lead in public places simply because I got him at 18 months old from The Dogs Trust and although I've had him a year now I do not know him in the same way that I would if I'd had him from a puppy, he has had trauma in his early life and is still affected by that with panic attacks, so he stays on a long lead and probably always will - one thing that we have taught him in the past twelve months is not to bark at anything that passes the house or comes to the door, its un-necessary aggression and he is now totally calm when take-away food gets delivered or other strangers call - thats how it should be, you shouldn't own a dog for protection and shouldn't encourage them to be aggressive.

I feel desperately sorry for the OP as he passed on some contacts to me for Springers when we were looking for a replacement dog last year, to lose your dog like this must be terrible and I hope they can come to terms with the loss sometime in future.

About ten or twelve years ago, I was out walking our little terrier on a Saturday afternoon and he was attacked by an ex-Police dog. Being quite a large area with lots of trees etc, I didn't see the owner and dogs in the distance otherwise would've went for a walk elsewhere. The bloke sometimes used to take this dog and a smaller, more docile one, into the field over the road and it was always clear it should've been on a lead and muzzled due to the wild nature of it. Luckily it seems as if this dog was trained to stun, rather than all-out kill, as he picked ours up, getting nearly all of his middle in his mouth and shaking him about for what felt like an eternity. I was only around 12 and had never been so terrified in my entire life. The owner just stood there and waited for his dog to return, had no intention of giving the thing a kick in the ribs. We got him to the vets and the vet told us straight that he couldn't guarantee he would survive, let alone pull through the operation and other treatments required for his internal injuries. Vet reckons the little fella managed to shift himself round slightly before the German Shepherd plunged his teeth in and shook him, as it was only his ribcage that stopped him suffering fatal damage. All the owner of the dog that attacked said after it had happened was "he's up, he looks fine, don't worry about him", only after my dad gave him some rather strong words and also threatened to involve the police did he offer to cover all vet costs and our expenses, as we had to take him through to the vets about 10 miles away.

Makes my blood boil reading about things like this happening, sorry for the loss OP and for what you and your family had to experience.

Ours is a daft as a brush but still barks and growls at any strange footsteps he hears walking up the stairs to the flat and to be honest, I wouldn't have it any other way. Once he's been introduced to the "stranger" he's fine. So after the new postie has had a fright, thinking that there's some deranged hound at the other side of the door, the next time he calls, the dog just sits there wagging his tail.

He's even better when we're on an all-night fishing trip. Someone once asked if I wasn't scared of leaving £2k worth of fishing rods & reels just outside the tent, so I suggested he tried to take them away while we were asleep. He didn't get within 20' of the tent before the dog was snarling & growling and even though he had seen the dog the previous day, he confessed that there was no way he'd have gone any further.

The fact that the dog bit your daughter as well as destroying your property (your dog). Surely the owners can be held accountable for the dog's action's? It may be worth asking other dog owners in the park whether they have ever had any run in's with this dog. Being able to provide evidence that this isn't an isolated incident must help your cause.

Thankfully in over 20 years of owning dogs I've had very few incidents of note. Owning quite large dogs myself, a German Wire Haired Pointer and Munsterlander, probably spares them from quite a lot. The odd scuffle, but nothing more.

I hope this incident doesn't put you or your daughter off owning a dog again. I can't begin to imagine how traumatizing this experience must have been for your daughter.

Making a civil claim against the owner of a dog is a near impossibility.

As far as I am aware you have to show the dog had 'propensity' to attack other animals or human beings. In the absence of witness statements to that effect, it is virtually impossible to do.

You may be able to claim from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority if a human has suffered injury.