Dog owners face prosecution over attacks

The owners of two dogs that have been terrorising cats in Burwood face prosecution.

Christchurch City Council animal control officers had to ask for police help yesterday when they attempted to take the two dogs from a Parish St address.

Mark Vincent, the council's animal control team leader, said the dogs' owners "had not been co-operative" and had moved the animals.

The animal control officers had initially located the dogs after several vicious attacks that left one cat dead and several injured.

They had planned to remove the dogs as part of an investigation into the attacks.

A nearby resident, who declined to be named, was sitting in her lounge last Thursday night when she saw two dogs attack her cat.

"I heard a scream like I've never heard before, and I ran outside and saw two dogs," the resident said.

Eventually both dogs ran off, but with no sign of her cat, the woman searched the neighbourhood.

Three hours later, she found the cat had escaped up a tree. "I was in tears when I saw my cat," she said.

Another resident, Philip Higgs, said he saw the dogs kill a cat on Friday night.

"I went to see where our cat was and I saw a couple of dogs and it looked like they were playing with something. I went down and it looked like a rag or something, and I discovered it was a cat," he said.

"I approached the dogs and shooed them away, and the cat was dead."

One of the dogs was a dark pitbull, and other a white bull mastiff with a black face.

The owner of the dead cat said she was devastated but did not want to comment further.

Vincent confirmed the council would take legal action against the dogs' owners.

"One of the dogs is classified as menacing, but they [the owners] haven't ensured it was muzzled, and with a muzzle these types of attacks would have been prevented," he said.

Police said they had been told three cats had died in the area.

- © Fairfax NZ News