Living to tell her story after horrific dog attack
A Putaruru woman mauled by eight pig hunting dogs thought it was only a matter of time before they killed her.
"I prayed I would die quickly, that it wouldn't take long,'' Maggie Christensen said this week, describing her terrifying ordeal on August 3 which left her with bites one doctor described as the worst he had seen.
Mrs Christensen, 36, was set upon by the young bull terrier-cross pack as she was out running on rural Hildreth Rd, not far from her family's dairy farm.
In an exclusive interview this week with the Waikato Times, she said she had felt the dogs biting into the back of her neck, her scalp, her ear, and she knew it wouldn't take long for them to get to her throat.
She thought she could fight them at first "I knew I had to protect myself'' but she ran out of strength.
They got her on to the ground and she instinctively curled into the foetal position to protect herself, as they continued the fierce attack.
Remember, they were pig dogs... and in a pack, and they didn't really belong to the "owner" from what I read. The ''owner'' unfortunately inherited these dogs...
I hope the media don't get all hysterical about dogs now. What they did was awful, but not all pet dogs are pig dogs.
I'm just happy there is a great ending to this story, and that she's still smiling... hope she doesn't give up jogging.
6 Comments:
At 11:59 a.m.,
Karen Batchelor said…
You cannot call yourself an experienced pig hunter when you allow your pack to roam at large.
You cannot call yourself a competent dog owner in the same circumstances. This owner still had a bitch roaming at large a day after this attack. Unbeleivable, there are still dogs roaming at large in Putaruru today. Where is their dog control contractor?
This isn't about these dogs being pig dogs necessarily as any group of dogs will express the pack mentality when free to do so.
Lesson: Never allow any dog to do his own thing - especially if he has the opportunity to do it in numbers with his mates. It aint rocket science.
At 4:12 a.m.,
zip said…
"I hope the media don't get all hysterical about dogs now. What they did was awful, but not all pet dogs are pig dogs"
It has been a surprise media have not gone more out of their way to milk this story. I still think they would like to get away with more if they could though - for example in this article they refer to the mixed bred dogs as a pack of "Bull Terrier" crosses, when they could just as easily have said "Greyhound" crosses. And Bull Terrier sounds one and the same to Pit Bull Terrier to most people. But, I can't help wonder if part of the reason they have not milked it further, is because less people are buying the dangerous dog breed myth, and those who insist on perpetuating it, the Brian Rudmans and Kerrie Woodhams etc are increasingly seen as idiots whose views are not shared by dogs experts and people are seeing this. Hope this is the case, but I know media will always be at the ready for another Pit Bull attacks headline. They probably keep a whole bunch of headlines in a special folder just waiting for that next "Pit Bull" attack happen.
At 7:31 a.m.,
Karen Batchelor said…
It may well be accurate to describe these dogs as Bull Terrier crosses Brendan as often pig hunters use English Bull Terriers in their mixes as we saw with Stewart Witeri's dogs (English Bully x Aussie Cattle Dog) which attacked the 13yo boy riding by on his bike.
Perhaps the media are less inclined to pull the Pit Bullsh*t after having to retract their claim that Stewart's dogs were Pit Bull crosses on Close Up, TVNZ after a complaint to them about their misinformation.
It's good to see that more and more people are aware of the true nature of the Pit Bulldog and that the attitude problem of the Woodhams, Rudmans and Shadbolts of this world is finally being recognised.
At 9:30 p.m.,
zip said…
Hey Karen.
"Perhaps the media are less inclined to pull the Pit Bullsh*t after having to retract their claim that Stewart's dogs were Pit Bull crosses on Close Up, TVNZ after a complaint to them about their misinformation."
I absolutely agree. But you know like I know NZ's media have a track history for not going the extra mile to get their stories right IF they can help it. In this case they were accurate calling those dogs Bull Terrier crosses. But they still chose to call them Bull Terrier crosses. They could have said Ridgeback or Greyhound crosses. They could have said mixed bred dogs, and I would be willing to bet those dogs haven't been pure bred anythings for several generations and each dog probably had a different portion of Bull Terrier blood than the next. When I hear Bull Terrier I think of English Bull Terrier. But to many people it's the same thing as Pit Bull Terrier and when it comes down to it APBTs and their owners are the ones who continue to pay the biggest price for this ignorance. A Bull Terrier cross story could end up on Dogsbite.org under their broad definition of what a Pit Bull is, but a Greyhound cross probably wouldn't.
Btw. Glad you can use Stonewall. A lot of dogs in NZ seem to come from Jeep or something similar. I had a wee bitch who was a dead ringer for Finley's Bo. So I guess I like those dogs too.
At 8:09 a.m.,
Karen Batchelor said…
You're right Brendan, the media puts the emphasis on the Bull Terrier. It's deliberate demonisation of 'the type' by self-serving individuals currying favour with their puppet masters on the executive and in parliament. Forelock-tugging sycophants.
The woman behind dogsbite.org - Colleen Lynn - has been well discredited by people qualified to discredit her so she's pretty much in the same nutjob category as Kory Nelson, Tom Skeldon and Ingrid Newkirk - or even our own homegrown whackos like the clowns who killed those 6 puppies because their mother was a Rottie.
I'm heartened by the number of ordinary folk I come across these days who know better having had first hand experience or neighbours, friends and/or family with a bully breed of some description with their typically loving and loyal natures, who die of old age never having put a paw wrong.
Note too that the SPCA finally has a sane spokesperson in Robyn Kippenberger and good people like Steph Saunders who are unafraid to speak out against the BS that is BSL and that is a giant leap forward for all unfairly vilified breeds besides our own.
Right again about the JEEP thing, a trap for new players. Same with the JACK FROST dog and red noses. People hear the names or fall for the red nose myth and before you know it our dogs are scatterbred (and crossbred)to blazes. Purple noses indeed!
It'll be good to see some more STONEWALL on the ground. Email me at PBnz for more on that. Quite apart from anything else he was a hell of a nice dog and smart. Played the boss like a fiddle, got himself off the yard and into the prestigious position of house-dog, where FR tells me he died of old age on the couch.
But back to Natalie's story here, I'd still like the dog control contractors to explain why there is still such a roaming dog problem in this country, especially when problem owners like the one who owned the dogs in this attack and other recent attacks have been known to be a potentially life-threatening problem to their neighbours in some cases for years.
Why is nothing said about their inaction and the sometimes fatal results (in the Murupara case for example)? What is THAT about?
At 7:21 p.m.,
Karen Batchelor said…
Should have explained to those outside the loop reading this, the use of upper case in bulldog's names is common practice in their pedigree descriptions, e.g. Crenshaw's CH HONEYBUNCH R.O.M., STP's GR. CH. BUCK R.O.M., Patrick's CH RED BABY etc.
It isn't the inappropriately offensive internet practice known as 'flaming'.
Just so you know.
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