\u201cI\u2019ve never been in such a horrifying situation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The dogs were \u201clashing out\u201d and biting Levi\u2019s neck, legs and ears, she said, while the lab was on his back trying to defend himself.<\/p>\n
Swainson grabbed a dog by the collar and tried to pull it off Levi, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just wanted to get Levi away from the dogs, I did not think about anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
The person walking the group of dogs attacking Levi came around the corner and ran over to help break up the fight.<\/p>\n
While the lab recovered quickly after escaping, Swainson noticed his neck bleeding from a large gash.<\/p>\n
In the stress of it all, both parties took their dogs separate ways and didn\u2019t exchange information.<\/p>\n
However, after the experience was shared on social media, the dog walker reached out to apologise, Swainson said.<\/p>\n
Levi has had two surgeries since the attack, mainly to stitch up the neck wound left behind, costing about $2000.<\/p>\n
The council\u2019s manager of environmental protection services, Caleb Johnson, said three dogs were involved in the fight, and more were present.<\/p>\n
He said two of the three dogs involved were not registered at the time of the incident.<\/p>\n
Animal management officers had spoken with the dog walker, who they said fully co-operated with the investigation.<\/p>\n
The council was considering appropriate enforcement under the Dog Control Act, Johnson said.<\/p>\n
This could include classifying the dogs as menacing, Johnson said, issuing infringement fines, and pursuing other enforcement options such as prosecution.<\/p>\n
Johnson said if anyone was confronted by an aggressive dog, they should stop, stand and leave.<\/p>\n
He said dog attacks in Palmerston North should be reported to the council.<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019ve never been in such a horrifying situation,\u201d she said. The dogs were \u201clashing out\u201d and biting Levi\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1344,3595,2220,9213,73291,111,43,139,529,69,90,6292,218174,22974,4770],"class_list":["post-446131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-attacked","tag-by","tag-carter","tag-dogs","tag-labrador","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-north","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-palmerston","tag-sammy","tag-track","tag-walking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}