Dog mauls teen

A Dargaville teenager was mauled by a dog which jumped a fence surrounding a residential property.

(...) A dog jumped over a fence, grabbed her by the leg and pulled her to the ground before ripping out chunks of her flesh.

(...)"This pitbull-type dog pulled me down on the ground and then jumped straight on top of my leg," she says.

Samantha says she was scared the dog might start to "rip me up in my face and I was thinking; 'not my face, not my face', I just wanted it to stop and then someone grabbed it off me, thank goodness."

(...) "I'm afraid I told the owner how they should keep their dog on a chain because if people are going to have animals they should control them," she says.

Actually, chaining isn't really control. Training and understanding dog's body language is. I can feel for the mother, and her reaction, but I wish that there would be better education out there. Dogs are great animals. They 'serve' us well as we do to them.

Too bad people feel that they need protection, and get a dog for the wrong reasons.