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\nThe child was injured by a dog which belonged to a family member who came to stay at their Waikato home.
\nPhoto: RNZ\/Supplied\n<\/p>\n
A woman whose young daughter had part of her face bitten off by an aggressive dog can not understand why the animal has not been euthanised, a month after the attack.<\/p>\n
The dog belongs to a family member who came to stay at their Waikato home.<\/p>\n
They were aware it had previously bitten an adult and had been impounded.<\/p>\n
At that time, animal control seized the dog and it had since been required to meet a set of regulations, including wearing a muzzle.<\/p>\n
However, the family was unaware it had also previously attacked a child.<\/p>\n
Georjeana Tupawa’s daughter was five when she was attacked, after the dog’s owner took her into the garage where the dog was living.<\/p>\n
It was not wearing a muzzle at the time.<\/p>\n
The dog was seized by animal control after the attack, but the owner will not give permission for it to be destroyed.<\/p>\n
Tupawa told Checkpoint the attack has left her daughter traumatised.<\/p>\n
“My daughter was bitten in the face and it wasn’t just a puncture wound. The dog actually ripped her upper cheek completely off. So she is now scarred from about halfway up her lip beside her nose, straight up under her eye.”<\/p>\n
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Photo: RNZ\/Supplied\n<\/p>\n
Tupawa’s daughter was in hospital for several days after going through emergency microsurgery.<\/p>\n
While her face is heavily scarred, the surgery was much more successful than it could have been.<\/p>\n
But it is trauma that Tupawa’s daughter was now dealing with.<\/p>\n
“She was having nightmares. I obviously stayed up at the hospital with her. It was really hard. I didn’t sleep because I was watching her. She was waking up multiple times. Kept asking, why did this happen?’.”<\/p>\n
More than a month on from the attack, the dog is still alive in the pound.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s inhumane, I think that it would be a real risk to allow this dog out, I think that everyone deserves a second chance and the dog was given that.”<\/p>\n
Tupawa said if the restrictions put on the dog after the first two attacks were followed, she believed the attack on her daughter could have been avoided.<\/p>\n
“It’s not the dog’s fault that the restrictions that were put in place were not followed and that this ultimately happened. I feel that it was a ticking time bomb. And I think that it just shouldn’t have happened.”<\/p>\n
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Photo: RNZ\/Supplied\n<\/p>\n
The dog’s owner has refused permission for it to be destroyed, which means the case now needs to be presented in front of a judge.<\/p>\n
“They’ve told us that this could take weeks, months, potentially even years.”<\/p>\n
“That says to me that this animal is being kept and I guess kind of like on death row in a way, or that the dog is going to be released and we’re going to wait for it to be fatal.”<\/p>\n
Given the evidence it had of the attack, Tupawa said the council should have the power to destroy the dog.<\/p>\n
“I think that the photos that we have, you know, post-op, pre-op, before they managed to do what they did. I think that those photos without any backstory should be an open and close case.”<\/p>\n
Tupawa said there needed to be changes to the current dog laws.<\/p>\n
“Why should this dog have to wait for it to go in front of a judge? This is an open-and-shut case.<\/p>\n
“You look at the photo, you look at my daughter now, you look at the scar that is on her face – it’s not on her foot, it’s not on her arm, it’s on her face. How do you deal with that? How do you move on from that?”<\/p>\n
The Waip\u0101 District Council told Checkpoint it has issued a notice to the dog owner saying they intended to hold the dog until the conclusion of a prosecution against them.<\/p>\n
The council is seeking the destruction of the dog and will keep communication lines open with the child’s family as the process progresses.<\/p>\n