A news article from the UK today
I feared rottweiler shot by police would kill me | Kentonline.co.uk
A DOG owner who had to batter his frenzied rottweiler round the head with a lump of metal as it savaged his auntie said police were right to shoot his pet.
Roy Carr of Willington Green, Shepway, Maidstone, blames himself for the attack.
It left his auntie Janine Morris in East Grinstead hospital for five days, needing a three-hour operation to reconstruct her arm.
Mr Carr, 35, believes it was an argument between himself and his auntie that prompted four-year-old rottweiler Kaizer to go beserk and attack him, before turning on his auntie.
Victim Mrs Morris described the horrific moment the dog turned on her late at night on Friday, February 1..
“At first it was just growling,” she said, “I pulled him away but he kept on and on; it worked up to a crescendo until he went at Roy.
“I had to hit him with a stick; it was then that it attacked me.
“I just gave up and thought that’s me gone, I’m going to die. He was dragging me about for what seemed like about an hour.”
Mr Carr said he was forced to beat the dog harder and harder as his auntie lost consciousness inside his first-floor flat.
“Her eyes were rolling in the back of her head; there was so much blood” he said; “I was actually hitting him with a lump of metal.
“The dog wasn’t even yelping.”
Having eventually escaped the onslaught Mr Carr called an ambulance and the two went to hospital leaving the dog tethered on the landing.
Neighbours said it was not until some hours later that the dog was shot by police.
Although Mr Carr signed a note authorising police to have the dog put down, he said he had not been told that they were going to shoot it.
But he does not blame the officers for Kaizer’s gruesome end.
“It was probably the most humane way because without me there they wouldn’t have been able to calm him.”
He added: “I’m devastated, I loved the dog. If we hadn’t been arguing, the dog wouldn’t have got angry. It’s so sad because he was a lovely dog. I’ve had him since he was six weeks old, he’s always been placid, it was totally out of character.
“There’s a lot of bad publicity about the breed of animal and I wouldn’t want the whole species of rottweiler to be tarnished by this one incident.”
Mrs Morris added: “It was terrifying and hurtful.”
Police said they killed the dog humanely and that it had been “dangerously out of control” during the evening.
About 20 police officers attended the incident, which happened on the first floor of a two-storey block of flats owned by Maidstone Housing Trust.
They waited three hours while attempts were made to find a vet to put Kaizer down. When one could not be found, it took officers three shots to kill the dog.
One neighbour said: “I totally understand that the police had to put the
animal down if it attacked someone, but you would think there was a more humane way.
“It was barbaric. There was blood everywhere.”
Police spokeswoman Lesley Miller said that when the police responded to the call they found the dog was “dangerously out of control on the communal landing area of the flats.”
She said: “Patrols attended, including experienced police dog handlers, but were unable to bring the animal under safe control.
“The dog presented a serious and immediate risk to the public and, after extensive liaison with the RSPCA and local vets, it was decided there was no other option than for police to destroy the animal at the location.
Chief Superintendent John Molloy said: “The decision to destroy this animal was not one we took lightly. Our number one priority is the safety of the public.
"This dog had already seriously injured two people and was dangerously out of control so we had to take this action to prevent anyone else being hurt.”
* A man has been arrested on suspicion of allowing a dog to be dangerously out of control and has been released on police bail pending further inquiries.