Mauled owner fights off his own pit bulls

A Tauranga man attacked by his pet pit bulls at home managed to fight them off and shut them in a room before calling emergency services for help.

The 34-year-old was in a serious but stable condition in Waikato Hospital yesterday after surgery for multiple lacerations to his scalp, face and arms.

The two female bull terrier cross dogs, one aged nine and the other 18 months, were shot by police when they arrived at the house at Hairini, near Welcome Bay.

Senior Sergeant Rob Glencross said their owner lost a lot of blood and was on the verge of unconsciousness when police arrived just after 6am.

The man's injuries were "pretty horrific".

"He was in a pretty bad way when they [ambulance officers] got there."

St John Ambulance paramedics called police because they thought it would be too dangerous to go inside the house, he said.

Tauranga District Council animal control manager Brent Lincoln said the man was able to fend off the attack and shut the dogs in a room before calling 111.

The dogs were both registered and had no previous history of attacks.

A report of a man separating two dogs fighting in the same area the day before was not believed to be connected to the attack, he said.

Meanwhile, a Te Aroha mother whose 13-year-old son was mauled in July 2008 by four pig-hunting dogs while biking along a rural road said she had received only half of the reparations ordered by the court against the dogs' owner.

Stewart Witeri, 37, was convicted and ordered to pay $5000 in reparations.

Only $2500 had been paid and payments stopped about six months ago, according to the mother, who did not want to be named.

She had been told Witeri had left the district. "I've contacted the court but there has been no follow-up."

She said the money received had been put towards her son's recuperation. "He is slowly getting back to normal. He was very afraid of going outside the front gate.

"He recently got a road bike and he has been able to ride around the area and overcome his fears."

The mother said community work was a better option than increasing jail sentences for owners of dangerous dogs.

Owners should be made to attend the victim's ongoing recuperation and recovery, she said.

"In our case we weren't interested in the owner going to jail – it was an accident, he didn't set the dogs onto my son.

"We would have preferred it if he had been made to attend all the times, over months and months, my son had his wounds treated so he could see himself the damage his dogs did.

"My son screamed the hospital down he was in so much pain – that's when the owner should have been there, to see how much pain he was going through."

- © Fairfax NZ News