A local father is furious after his daughter was bitten by a Staffordshire bull terrier on Eastern Beach on January 21.
According to Neal Holt, his 9-year-old daughter was sitting in shallow water at around 6:35pm when the unrestrained dog ran towards her aggressively and proceeded to bite her on the ear.
After chasing the dog away it approached another girl in shallow water and Mr Holt “advised that family to not let the dog get any closer to her.”
The dog’s owner came over and apologised, and said he would come back to check on the girl once he had secured the animal in his car.
Mr Holt followed the man down the beach and saw him subsequently get into a waiting car and watched him “doing a runner.”
His daughter was then taken to Botany A & E , and then onto Middlemore Hospital. Mr Holt would like to say “A big thank you to the staff there and to the people who assisted our family on the beach.”
Mr Holt said the incident could have been much worse; “my daughter was very lucky that the dog only went for her ear… dogs are prohibited on the beach prior to 7.00pm”.
When asked if loose dogs were a problem at the beach, Mr Holt said in his opinion “ A lot of people manage their dogs well. But in the six and a half years that we have lived at Eastern Beach, my two children have been accosted 4 times (by dogs)and added: “I am pretty frustrated that this is occurring.”
Animal management is investigating the incident.
