Pet dog ‘ripped apart’ during Alsatian attack

Animal’s intestines left ‘outside body’

‘What do you want me to do?’

A DOCTOR tried in vain to shield her little dog as two German Shepherds tore it to pieces.

Dr Caroline Noone told Galway District Court she came out her front door to see her neighbour’s German Shepherds tearing her little dog, Archie, between them.

Her neighbour, trainee nurse, Lucia Fahy, 31, from Gortnahoe, Ballindooley, Castlegar, Galway, pleaded guilty to a charge of not having her dogs under proper control on October 13, 2016.

The doctor told Judge Mary Fahy she ran outside when she heard high-pitched screeches.

‘The two dogs were tearing my dog apart. They each had one end in their mouths. I threw stones, screamed and threw a bucket of water but there was absolutely no getting them away,’ she said.

Dr Noone said Archie, a Yorkshire terrier, Jack Russell cross, was an incredibly important dog who had actually saved her life on a number of occasions and she was extremely attached to him.

She explained she had diabetes and he could detect if her blood sugar levels were low. He woke her on a number of occasions when that happened and on another occasion, he wouldn’t let her into her house. The carbon monoxide alarm activated half an hour later, she said.

Dr Noone said she attempted to shield her dog from the dogs by lying across him, but the German Shepherds ‘were very intent on what they were doing’ and kept biting at her hands. She received cuts in the process which later became infected.

She was dragged along the gravel and sustained cuts to her knees as well as a shoulder injury. She explained that her dog, which weighed just four kilos, was completely eviscerated in the attack, with its intestines ending up outside its body.

He died five minutes later, she added. ‘He was a tiny little thing and they were two large Alsatians. He didn’t stand a chance,’ Judge Fahy observed. Dr Noone said she still suffered from bad dreams about the incident.

She complained that the dismissive way in which she was treated by Ms Fahy after the incident occurred was also extremely distressing. She brought her little dog over in her arms to show the Fahy family, who lived just 80 yards away from her, what their dogs had done and let them know their dogs were loose.

She said there were young children in the house next-door and she said Lucia Fahy was quite dismissive of her and had said: ‘What do you want me to do?’, when she told her the dogs were loose.

Defence solicitor, Olivia Traynor, said her client was a student nurse in Sligo. The dogs had been sent to Madra and were put down four days later. Judge Fahy directed the accused pay a token €300 compensation to Dr Noone. She then convicted and fined Ms Fahy €500, taking charges for not having dog licences or muzzles on the dogs, into account.

Dr Noone said she would like the €300 to go to the Patient Comfort Fund at the chemotherapy unit at UHG.