Dog owner out of pocket after attack on boy

A Boksburg dog owner will have to cough up for the damages sustained by a schoolboy who was attacked by her two dogs while he was walking past her home.

Acting Judge Mandla Mbongwe ruled in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria that dog owner Monica Selane was liable to compensate Jay-Drew Brown following a January 2013 incident when her dogs attacked the boy, who was then eight years old.

The boy’s mother Marlene Brown instituted a R600 000 damages claim against Selane – who lives in the same street – after the incident, which resulted in her son having to be hospitalised and being left with severe scarring.

The actual amount of damages will only be determined at a later stage.

Jay-Drew and his friend testified that the dogs had come out of the open gate as Selane drove in. The dogs started biting the screaming schoolboy on the thigh and upper arm.

His friend rescued him by throwing a stone at the dogs and kicking them to chase them away. After Jay-Drew arrived home bleeding and crying, his mother drove to Selane’s home to confront her before taking him to hospital.

Jay-Drew had seen the same dogs chasing other children as they walked past Selane’s home and his friend at first started running when the gate was opened as he was afraid of the dogs, but Selane’s daughter had warned him not to run as the dogs would chase him.

Both boys denied provoking the dogs and causing the attack.

Brown testified that she had seen Selane’s dogs chasing passing children and cars, including hers. She said Selane had admitted that it was her dogs that bit Jay-Drew.

Selane denied that her dogs had bitten the boy but admitted that she had offered to take him to her doctor, followed Brown to the hospital, phoned the boy’s parents the day after the incident to find out how he was and sent a “sorry and get well soon” card and a chocolate to the boy’s home.

Judge Mbongwe said Selane would not have gone as far as she did had she genuinely not accepted that her dogs had attacked the schoolboy and ruled that she was liable for compensating Jay-Drew.