An Adelaide man has relived the horrifying moment a pet dog suddenly attacked him and his family and their desperate bid to fight it off before it ripped them apart.
He and his sister have had to undergo multiple surgeries after their family dog, a Sharpei-Pitbull cross named Caliche, began attacking them during an argument at a home in Brompton on Tuesday.
Clifford Newchurch, 42, had been visiting family when the dog suddenly launched at him in a vicious attack, latching onto his hand and tearing at the flesh with its teeth.
He tried to fend it off with flames from his cigarette lighter while his family doused it in boiling water when the beast then turned and savaged his sister Stella, 39.
Blood from the attack was sprayed around the home and soaked into a mattress while the dog was trapped in a bedroom and desperately fought to get out again.
The man’s six year old nephew was forced to cower in a locked bathroom for safety while the carnage raged throughout the home. Another two year old toddler in the home was unhurt in the incident.
Clifford (pictured) feared he would lose his hand and his sister would lose her arm in the attack
The family had owned the Sharpei-Poitbull crossbreed dog for eight years
Bloody handprints are spread throughout the home as the family fought off the beast
The vicious attack splattered blood throughout the home
‘[The child] was that frightened – he just wanted bug cuddles from his mum,’ the father of the victims told Nine News.
‘[His mother] got dragged around by the dog, it was horrible. Her eyes were rolling in the back of her head and I was just screaming.
‘We had to put hot water over the dog so that he would stop attacking my daughter.’
Clifford admitted he thought his hand would be left permanently damaged from the attack or even have to amputated after the attack on Tuesday.
‘Just the way he was mauling on my arm, on my hand, it looked like he liked it, like he wanted more…I thought I would lose my hand,’ he told Nine.
Video from inside the home shows the room and hallway where the attack happened covered with blood, with bloody handprints smeared on a mattress and door handle from where the siblings tried to fight off the attack.
‘I remember his eyes and his face and that look on him, it was like an evil look,’ Clifford said.
‘I’m a 40-year-old man and he scared the s*** out of me.’
The family managed to pry the dog off the woman before it was locked in a bedroom while the family fought to keep the door shut as the powerful dog tore at the wood.
The victim’s father added: ‘My daughter had to hold onto the door so it couldn’t come out but he had his teeth ripping at the door trying to open it.
‘He’s that strong, it’s lucky he didn’t get the door open.’
His sister remains in Royal Adelaide Hospital where she has undergone extensive surgeries to save her arm.
The dog, which had been owned by the family for eight years, has since been surrendered to the local council to be put down.
‘The police came and they were frightened as well,’ said the father of the victims.
‘I want him put down. I don’t want dogs in my life ever again.’
The dog has now been surrendered to council to be put down
Blood from the savage mauling soaked and stained a mattress
The attack comes as the UK revealed plans to ban all American XL bully dogs by the end of the year after a spate of attacks there.
In a video announcement on Friday, the British PM Rishi Sunak said the breed would be banned following a ‘pattern of behaviour’ that he said ‘cannot go on’.
Mr Sunak said he has ordered ministers to convene a panel of experts, including the police, to define the breed so it can then be outlawed.
The announcement came after a man died in a suspected XL Bully attack in Stonnall, Staffordshire, the third incident involving allegedly out-of-control dogs in the West Midlands in less than a week.
The fatality occurred just a day after a 10-year-old boy was attacked by an out-of-control dog while playing football less than three miles away. Less than a week earlier, an XL Bully mauled an 11-year-old girl in Birmingham.
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