Savage pitbull kills mum

The family of a Bay of Plenty woman killed in a dog attack say the "vicious" dogs had attacked before and should never have been roaming free.

Virginia Ohlson, 56, a member of a well-known family in the Murupara area, was mauled by two dogs - a pitbull and a Staffordshire terrier cross - while on her daily 6.45am walk to buy bread and milk at the local dairy.

She died in an ambulance en route to hospital.

This a tragic event. You go to buy bread to never return. Wow... I can't really phanthom that.

Police are treating the death as a homicide and are investigating charges against the dog owner, a local man. This will be interesting to see what charges will stick! I beleive some dog owner in NZ were put in jail because their dog attacked a human... can't remember the case now.

Both dogs were put down after the attack.

The attack is the country's fourth fatal dog mauling since 1997. In the last year alone, dozens of people - mainly children and the elderly - have been hospitalised in dog attacks. At least 17 of those have suffered severe injuries.

Ohlson was two minutes from her Pine Dr home when the dogs attacked, causing substantial injuries to her lower legs. She staggered towards her home but fell unconscious and was assisted by the dog owner's mother who chased the animals away. Her sister Ivy, who lives not far from where Virginia was attacked, described the dogs as "vicious" and said they should never have been free to attack her sister. Brother Bruce said that dog attacks were far too common.

"Unfortunately it happened to my sister ... It's just gone beyond a joke now. Something has to be done." At a local level, of course. It's interesting how dog attacks around the world have gone up. It's as if dogs are stressed like humans. It's just weird. But then again, perhpas there is more reporting of them in the media too. Or possibly this is the fall out of laws gone bad.

Virginia's cousin Debbie Hynes said the dog's owner - known as Spider -had been warned about the dogs before, adding that he used to live next door to her and his dogs had attacked her dogs.

"The amount of warnings that owner got... "

(...)

Loper said police needed to investigate if someone had been grossly negligent and if any offences had occurred. The dogs' owners were interviewed yesterday afternoon. Loper said police would probably meet the Rotorua crown solicitor for legal advice by the end of the week. He was unaware of previous warnings about the dogs.

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The other story can be viewed here. "

New Zealand Kennel Club Senior Vice President Martin Hewitt said it was usually owners who were at fault, not the dogs, because dogs were brought up badly, had been constantly locked up or allowed to roam free.

"Don't worry about banning dogs, we should be banning owners," he said." Yup !