‘Loved dog’ savages man
Wife badly hurt as she tried desperately to stop mauling
A MELBOURNE man whose dog mauled his father to death is struggling to comprehend the tragedy.
Family say Junior the American staffordshire terrier, which savaged Leo Biancofiore, had never behaved aggressively before. It attacked Mr Biancofiore and wife Donata at their Mill Park home on Wednesday night.
Mrs Biancofiore, who tried to save her husband, had emergency surgery and was last night stable in hospital.
The couple’s nephew said relatives were supporting each other through their grief.
“All the family is coming together and we are going to help each other out, help each other through,” he said.
“My father (Leo’s brother) is pretty distraught at the moment. It’s an unfortunate situation that’s happened.”
The man said the couple’s son, Mark, 29, who owned Junior, was devastated.
“We’ve got to wait until she (Donata) gets out of surgery and then we’ll go from there,” the nephew said. “We want to let her recover and give my little cousin space because he’s pretty distraught.”
He said the attack was out of character for the pet.
“My uncle loved the dog,” he said. “It was pretty much out of character. The dog loved my uncle. The dog was never aggressive.”
Police were called at 6.40pm when neighbours heard Mrs Biancofiore screaming.
Neighbours watched as she tried to pull the dog off her husband.
By the time police arrived, Mr Biancofiore, who had physical disabilities, was dead.
“(Donata) was the real hero,” a neighbour said. “She put her life on the line.”
Neighbours Radenko and Danielle Subotic said they thought someone must have been murdered when they heard the commotion.
“The dog was on top of the body,” Mrs Subotic said.
Their son, who worked to save the couple, said the ordeal lasted about 40 minutes.
He and his sister sprayed Junior with a hose as he leapt to bite them over a 2m fence.
“It was so scary — not even in a horror movie have I seen that,” he said. “I’ve never even experienced that in a video game. It sunk in when the screaming stopped that someone had not made it.”
The attack only stopped when police arrived and fired two shots. Junior was euthanised later that night.
Neighbours said they had been wary of the dog.
Junior was not registered and the local council had not received any reports about it.
The American Staffordshire Terrier Club of Victoria called for action on dodgy breeders, arguing they contributed to temperament problems.