A man who survived being mauled by dogs six years ago says the death of a 56-year-old Rotorua woman at the weekend is good enough reason to ban vicious breeds.
Virginia Ohlsen was out walking in Murupara when she was attacked by a Staffordshire cross and a pitbull terrier, both dogs unregistered.
Despite the efforts of others at the scene to keep her warm and try to stem the blood flow, she died of shock and trauma as an ambulance took her to hospital.
Howard Martin, who was attacked by three pitbulls when he went to a house in the Auckland suburb of Papakura, says the latest tragedy brought back horrific memories and he recalls the way the dogs just would not give up. His scars have never healed.
Martin says the pitbull breed is harder to deal with than the likes of Alsatians because the pitbull latches on and has every intention of killing.
Martin says Ohlsen's death is a tragedy which could have been prevented.
The two dogs involved in the attack have been destroyed and their owner will know on Friday if charges will be laid against him. Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Loper says police will talk to the Crown solicitor on Friday.
Whakatane District Council chief executive Diane Turner says the
council is leaving it up to police to prosecute the owner.
She says the dogs were never registered with the council and there
is no record of them on their database.
It is the third fatal dog attack in the last 10 years.
The pitbull terrier is the same breed that left Auckland school
girl Carolina Anderson badly disfigured and partially blind.
Clark favours ban
Prime Minister Helen Clark says she is in favour of banning all dangerous dog breeds but the problem lies in the definition.
Clark says it is horrific that such breeds of dog are running free anywhere in New Zealand. She says legislation has been tightened up a great deal and now the penalties on the owner of a dog which commits an assault such as that committed on Ohlsen are pretty onerous. But Clark says past experience has shown it is too hard to pin down what constitutes a dangerous breed.
"The advice was that if you tried to define the dogs, then the cross-breeding soon rendered those definitions not particularly relevant, that's the problem," she says.
Clark says it is not as easy to make progress on the issue as
one might think.
