Source: Radio New Zealand
The child was injured by a dog which belonged to a family member who came to stay at their Waikato home. RNZ/Supplied
A woman whose young daughter had part of her face bitten off by an aggressive dog can not understand why the animal has not been euthanised, a month after the attack.
The dog belongs to a family member who came to stay at their Waikato home.
They were aware it had previously bitten an adult and had been impounded.
At that time, animal control seized the dog and it had since been required to meet a set of regulations, including wearing a muzzle.
However, the family was unaware it had also previously attacked a child.
Georjeana Tupawa’s daughter was five when she was attacked, after the dog’s owner took her into the garage where the dog was living.
It was not wearing a muzzle at the time.
The dog was seized by animal control after the attack, but the owner will not give permission for it to be destroyed.
Tupawa told Checkpoint the attack has left her daughter traumatised.
“My daughter was bitten in the face and it wasn’t just a puncture wound. The dog actually ripped her upper cheek completely off. So she is now scarred from about halfway up her lip beside her nose, straight up under her eye.”
RNZ/Supplied
Tupawa’s daughter was in hospital for several days after going through emergency microsurgery.
While her face is heavily scarred, the surgery was much more successful than it could have been.
But it is trauma that Tupawa’s daughter was now dealing with.
“She was having nightmares. I obviously stayed up at the hospital with her. It was really hard. I didn’t sleep because I was watching her. She was waking up multiple times. Kept asking, why did this happen?’.”
More than a month on from the attack, the dog is still alive in the pound.
“I think it’s inhumane, I think that it would be a real risk to allow this dog out, I think that everyone deserves a second chance and the dog was given that.”
Tupawa said if the restrictions put on the dog after the first two attacks were followed, she believed the attack on her daughter could have been avoided.
“It’s not the dog’s fault that the restrictions that were put in place were not followed and that this ultimately happened. I feel that it was a ticking time bomb. And I think that it just shouldn’t have happened.”
RNZ/Supplied
The dog’s owner has refused permission for it to be destroyed, which means the case now needs to be presented in front of a judge.
“They’ve told us that this could take weeks, months, potentially even years.”
“That says to me that this animal is being kept and I guess kind of like on death row in a way, or that the dog is going to be released and we’re going to wait for it to be fatal.”
Given the evidence it had of the attack, Tupawa said the council should have the power to destroy the dog.
“I think that the photos that we have, you know, post-op, pre-op, before they managed to do what they did. I think that those photos without any backstory should be an open and close case.”
Tupawa said there needed to be changes to the current dog laws.
“Why should this dog have to wait for it to go in front of a judge? This is an open-and-shut case.
“You look at the photo, you look at my daughter now, you look at the scar that is on her face – it’s not on her foot, it’s not on her arm, it’s on her face. How do you deal with that? How do you move on from that?”
The Waipā District Council told Checkpoint it has issued a notice to the dog owner saying they intended to hold the dog until the conclusion of a prosecution against them.
The council is seeking the destruction of the dog and will keep communication lines open with the child’s family as the process progresses.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
