Owner offered to put dogs down after Balclutha attack

Otago Daily Times

03-07-2025

The owner of two large dogs that savaged a smaller dog and injured an elderly woman in Balclutha says she offered to have her pets put down immediately.
The woman asked not to be named after threats were made following yesterday's Otago Daily Times story about the attack.
She said it did not excuse what happened, but there was more context and that her recollection of events differed from that of 81-year-old Diane Le Sueur, the owner of the smaller dog.
Mrs Le Sueur told the ODT she was walking Alice, her 8-year-old bichon-Shi Tzu cross, on June 24 when a German shepherd and a Rottweiler came bounding out of the Balclutha Dog Park.
The larger dogs badly injured Alice and Mrs Le Sueur needed stitches in "a deep 2.7cm gash" wound on her right hand received when she tried to break up the dogs.
The owner of the German shepherd and Rottweiler said the dogs were barking at each other through the fence as the smaller dog, which was jumping up at the fence, went past.
She called her dogs to her and was cleaning up after one of them when she heard the latch to the dog park's gate open and looked up to see her dogs going through the gates, and "all the dogs fighting outside the park".
"My dogs were biting and I do not excuse that, but it didn't look like predator-prey behaviour ... It looked like dogs having a nasty scrap."
She described getting her hands between the dogs and lifting Alice to her chest while Mrs Le Sueur screamed.
"I carried [Alice] to her car, got my dogs in my car and followed her to the vets."
The vet centre asked the woman to wait outside while Mrs Le Sueur went in to get extensive emergency treatment for Alice.
Outside, the woman supplied her details and driver's licence, called a family member to join her, took her dogs home and returned to find Mrs Le Sueur had gone to hospital.
The woman said they spoke to animal control that night, too.
"We ... said if you need us to put the dogs down we will go and do that right now ... it would be horrible, but we will do it.
"They said seizure and euthanasia was not necessary right now; they would investigate and saw it as some dogs having a scrap.
"I went home and contacted my insurer and called the vets with all the policy details the next morning."
She said animal control visited in the morning and met the dogs and told her they would be classifying them as "menacing".
"I'd already been online the night before and ordered muzzles for them."
She said the dogs, a 2-and-a-half-year-old German shepherd and an 8-year-old, "70kg" Rottweiler, were both de-sexed, had no history of trouble, and she and her family had cared for those large breeds "most of her life".
She had initially only been focused on making sure everyone was safe and getting the help they needed, and once they were, she burst into tears, she said.
"I was distraught ... when I shut my eyes to sleep, I just keep seeing it playing over and over.
"I would have reached out to [Mrs Le Sueur] appropriately, but I've been supplied with no information at all. I didn't learn her name till I saw it in the paper."
She said she had done everything she could during and after the attack and was surprised to discover Clutha District Council chief executive Steve Hill had said the incident was still under investigation after animal control officers gave her the impression her dogs were being classified as menacing.
After four days with the vet, Alice is recovering at home with Mrs Le Sueur, whose right hand is bandaged and immobile.
"The vet says [Alice] has internal stitches, which will dissolve. I don't know what we'll do if she has ongoing issues," Mrs Le Sueur said.
"I can't feel or move my hand.
"Council says they need all the paperwork before they make a final decision, but I haven't received a hospital report myself."
She was frustrated the large dogs had not been seized and impounded, pending the council's outcome.
Mr Hill said council staff could only seize the dogs if a dog control officer or dog ranger had reasonable grounds to believe an offence had been committed under the Dog Control Act.
Staff were still investigating to "determine what are the grounds and a decision as to the enforcement path", he said.
"It should be noted that the police also have powers, should they choose to intervene.
"Ultimately, council, as the enforcement authority, will give serious consideration to all aspects of the case and make an enforcement decision. It is in everyone's interest for council to act with alacrity, but also to act carefully, and give the matter due consideration.
"I trust our answers will assist the community [to] be informed about the situation. Everyone is entitled to due process and neither Facebook nor, with respect, the media are appropriate mediums to give due process," Mr Hill said.
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