Horror in park
Dogs rip beagle apart as their owner walks away
A BEAGLE belonging to a doctor was ripped apart in a horror attack by two dogs in a park.
Two-year-old Chester was set upon and killed by the bloodthirsty beasts after he had chased their ball.
His walker Janet Payne begged their owner to intervene, but she claimed he simply replied: ‘Why the f*** wasn’t your dog on a lead?’
A video posted online shows the owner, Paul Baxter, 35, attempting to separate his dogs before appearing to give up and walking away.
Miss Payne, 39, who had four other dogs with her at the time, said: ‘I was shouting to Chester to come and I looked up and saw two big dogs with something between them. I just knew. I screamed.
‘I clipped the other dogs to a railing and ran to Chester. He was in the middle of the field being pulled all over the place. The little boy was being torn to pieces.’ Miss Payne said she tried to help but feared she too would be attacked.
She said Mr Baxter pulled one dog away – but the other continued to savage the little beagle.
Mr Baxter then walked off, calling the second dog’s name. By the time the dog eventually ran to him, Chester was dead.
Police last night confirmed they had seized the dogs following the brutal attack in a rugby field in Eccles, Greater Manchester, on Wednesday. The dogs, a four-yearold brown ridgeback-Staffordshire bull terrier cross and a white oneyearold Pakistani mastiff, are likely to be destroyed.
Yesterday Mr Baxter, a joiner from Eccles, said he was ‘devastated’ about Chester’s death and apologised to the owners.
However, he insisted his dogs, named Deebo and Loki, were ‘gentle’ family pets who he trusted around his toddler daughter. He said: ‘My dogs have never acted like this before. They are good with other dogs, they are gentle with my three-year-old daughter.’ He said he tried his best to get the dogs off Chester and believes they attacked because the beagle wanted to play with their ball.
‘The beagle came out of nowhere from behind and wasn’t on a lead,’ he said. ‘He started trying to get their ball and they started biting him. I don’t know what set them off. I think at first Deebo might have been trying to protect Loki.
‘I tried for ages to separate them but then I got short of breath with asthma. I don’t like seeing dogs getting hurt – it was a horrible thing to witness. I’ve not trained them to be like that.’ Chester was bought by hospital doctor Jennifer Thornley, 29, as a wedding present for her project manager husband Gary, 28, two years ago.
Last night Mrs Thornley called for the dogs that killed him to be destroyed. ‘When I saw him he had chunks missing from his little body,’ she said. ‘He was the most beautiful boy. He was our best friend, we absolutely love him.
‘He was so friendly, so trusting. I don’t know what we are going to do without him I’ve seen the video – those dogs enjoyed it. What if this happens to a child?’
Last night Greater Manchester police said tests were still being carried out to see if the dogs involved were banned breeds.