Man set on by pit bull and its owner

A man was mauled by a pit bull-cross dog and threatened by its knife-wielding owner as he protected his young labrador-cross from a dog fight.

The victim, who was left with puncture wounds, bruises and grazes, said the man was ranting and punching his dog in attempt to agitate it to attack the labrador-cross.

Another man, with a mobile phone, waited nearby as a lookout.

The attack, at Whitireia Park near Titahi Bay in Porirua, is close to where William Kain Campbell, the first man to be jailed for dog fighting, stole a 14-year-old ridgeback cross and used him as dog fighting bait for his pit bull-cross. The stolen dog, Lincoln, was badly hurt in the attack.

Police are now hunting for the owner and his dog involved in the latest incident, which happened about 5.30pm on Tuesday.

The victim, who is afraid to be named, was left with puncture wounds to his leg. He also suffered deep bruises and grazes to his thigh and back after rolling down a bank as the pit bull lunged at him.

He was swimming in a small cove surrounded by steep cliffs, with only one track in and out, when the man approached.

"This guy came flying over the rocks with his pit bull, punching his dog. He was trying to make it come for me ... but it didn't want to. By the time he had finished with it, it was frothing at the mouth. It was good to go."

There was a standoff for about 10 minutes as the man and his labrador-cross dog Gracie, which is nearly two years old, stood at the water's edge before the pit bull owner and dog left.

"I heard that pit bulls don't like water. I went as close to the water as I could."

He waited about half-an-hour but as he walked up the track the pit bull came "screaming out of the bush towards me. I threw her [Gracie] over behind me".

The man wrestled with the dog as it bit his leg and they slipped down a bank.

They fought for about five minutes before it backed down.

Then the owner came out of the bush with a large chef's knife, the man said. "He wasn't even making any sense. He was basically threatening me."

During the ordeal he noticed another man with a cellphone, acting as a spotter for the pit bull owner.

"People have got to know that there's people like them waiting for you to go out there. They were just there for the joy of it."

The men eventually drove off, he said.

Senior Sergeant Derek Chapman, of Porirua, said the attack was isolated and had "nothing to do" with the previous dog fighting incident. He did not believe there was a dog-fighting culture in Porirua.

But police were concerned that a person was attacked in public while out walking and want help identifying the pit bull's owner.

He was a slightly overweight Maori man in his 50s, who walked with a limp. He was wearing a vest, black or blue jeans and had a blue nylon bag tied at the top with orange rope.

- © Fairfax NZ News