A THREE-YEAR-OLD boy’s picnic on the riverside in York ended in horror when he was attacked and bitten by a dog.
Preston Sellars suffered puncture wounds to his chest as the dog – believed to be an American Staffordshire Terrier – knocked him to the ground near Clifton Bridge and stood over him.
The animal’s owner pulled it off the screaming boy, and then offered Preston’s mother, Amanda Simpson, a tissue before walking off with the dog, leaving her to call a taxi to take him to hospital.
Amanda, of Carr Lane, off Boroughbridge Road, said today she feared the dog would now attack another child, and she urged its owner – or anyone who knew who it belonged to – to contact police.
She said if the dog had bitten Preston a few inches higher, he could have been left with permanent facial scarring.
She said: “As it is, he now flinches when we walk past a dog and are worried he will be mentally scarred.”
She revealed the wound had been left open and had to be dressed regularly, and Preston had been given antibiotics to ensure he did not get an infection from the dog’s mouth, and he had also had a tetanus jab.
She said: “I am speaking out because I can’t bear the thought of opening the paper or switching on the news in a week’s time and hearing a little kid’s been mauled by the same dog.”
She said the incident happened at about 4pm on Sunday on the riverbank just upstream of Clifton Bridge, not far from the RSPCA animal home.
“It was a nice day, so we decided to go for a picnic by the river, as Preston likes to watch people fishing.
“The dog was like a Staffy, only with long legs – I think it’s known as an American Staffordshire – and it had a collar with a name tag shaped like a bone.
“The dog was off its lead when it went up to my older son, Callum, who’s 11, and nipped his T-shirt. The man, who was in his 50s, saw what happened and put the dog on its lead, but it was quite a long lead and it just went for Preston.
“It knocked him on his back and was standing over him. I was screaming hysterically and the man dragged it off and then asked if I wanted a Kleenex, quite casually.
“I said ‘I think it’ll need more than a Kleenex,’ and then he said he hadn’t any transport and just walked off. I think if it was my dog that had done that, I would have felt like strangling it there and then.”
• North Yorkshire Police said the incident was in the early stages of investigation and it urged any witnesses in the area at the time – including the owner – to phone PC Wesley Cooper on 0845 6060247, quoting crime reference number 12110105980.
A police spokeswoman said: “All dog owners have a responsibility to ensure their animal is kept under control, which includes keeping it on a lead at all times in a public place.
“Allowing a dog to be dangerously out of control is an offence and can result in imprisonment or fine, or both.”
Owners must be responsible
IT IS one of our most popular clichés that dogs are man’s best friend. And often that is exactly what they are.
Yet sometimes one person’s faithful pet can be a scary menace to someone else, or worse. The story we report today of an attack on a three-year-old boy by the banks of the River Ouse in York did not end as badly as it might have done, but it still proves the point.
Preston Sellars, who was bitten in the incident, escaped with relatively minor wounds, although, as his mother points out, if the bite had been a little higher he could have suffered severe scarring to his face.
The harm dogs can do never really goes away. Most dogs may be safe and well behaved, but some dogs are not, and just occasionally we are forced to witness the lethal power of an out-of-control canine. Four years ago, Ellie Lawrenson, who was five, died in Liverpool on New Year’s Day after she was savagely attacked by a dog thought to have been a pit-bull terrier.
That dog belonged to a relative rather than a stranger, but the risks of misbehaviour or worse remain with dogs out in the open. Any dog which its owner knows to be capable of attacking should be kept on a lead in public.
When dogs do worry or bite, too often their owners dismiss what has occurred as nothing to be concerned about – much as the dog walker seemingly did in this latest case, when the distraught mother said he merely offered a tissue to tend her son’s injury.
Most dog owners are responsible and love their pets. Those who give free rein to potentially vicious dogs let the side down badly.
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