Marauding dogs kill cat, bite man
Nita Stevenson woke in the middle of the night to barking and an unfamiliar, snarling dog in her backyard.
Before long, her start to Friday would involve the appearance of a second aggressive canine, her husband being bitten, and finding their beloved cat mauled to death.
The Hamilton City Council’s animal control team is investigating and trying to catch the dogs.
When Stevenson opened the back door of her Dinsdale home, the dog was there, ‘‘standing with its legs apart’’, she said.
‘‘The dog confronted me . . . So I screamed out to my husband, and he came running out . . . The hair was standing up on the back of my neck,’’ she said.
The pair herded the dog down their Montana Place driveway and onto the street, only for another hostile canine to appear.
That’s when things turned south for her husband, Dave Stevenson.
‘‘I saw the dog attack him,’’ Nita said. ‘‘The couple down the end of the street heard me screaming, and they came down to help.’’
They grabbed road cones and rubbish bins to fend off the dogs, which Nita believes were pitbulls.
Dave was left with puncture wounds on his left thigh. ‘‘I know his leg’s sore. By the time he left for work his leg was getting quite swollen,’’ Nita said. ‘‘He’s normally pretty stubborn, but he said he’s got to get a tetanus shot.’’
Dave patched himself up and went looking for their cat, Wiiman – named after the Nintendo game console.
‘‘We have a big covered backyard and of course the cats sleep there,’’ Nita said.
‘‘The one that died was asleep on his chair . . . Dave found Wiiman dead, over by the fence.’’
She doesn’t think the dogs had collars or tags and said the city council response was ‘‘very good.’’
Yesterday afternoon, a council animal control officer had come to assess placing traps around the property in an effort to catch the two dogs.
Nita hesitated to think about what could have been. ‘‘What if there was a kid out there?’’ she said.
The city council’s animal education and control manager, Sue Stanford, said her team was helping the Stevensons to find and catch the offending dog.
‘‘Animal Control are aware of the incident in Dinsdale last night and are investigating,’’ she said in a statement.
‘‘If we identify an offending dog and owner and the attack is substantiated, there are several enforcement options we could pursue, such as giving a fine, written warning, classifying the dog as menacing or dangerous and prosecuting the owner under the Dog Control Act.’’
Anyone who saw two black pitbulls in the Dinsdale area overnight on Thursday is asked to contact the Hamilton City Council’s Animal Education and Control on 07 838 6632.