Outraged locals in an outer Melbourne suburb are asking why it took two savage attacks on women just one day apart before vicious dogs they had complained about several times were finally seized.
On Friday afternoon, a new mum was pushing a pram with her baby to pick up an older child from school when she was savagely mauled by the two dogs in Withers Close, Sunbury, 40kms north-west of Melbourne’s CBD.
Shockingly, the same dogs were still roaming free after they had attacked a 71-year-old woman just one day earlier, knocking her to the ground and biting her face, legs and back.
The elderly woman was saved by two men who pulled the dogs off her, but they too were injured by the animals in doing so, the police said.
Neighbour Mick Jackson saw the attack on the 35-year-old mother and said: ‘She was bleeding from the head, the ears, the nose.
‘I’m sorry to say (it) but she was just like an attacked piece of meat.’
The dogs’ owner told 7News that she heard the mother scream from her home.
‘I was shocked as anything, but I ran out there straight away and I put my body over the woman. I’m just so, so happy that the baby was OK,’ she said.
On Friday afternoon, a new mum (pictured lying injured on the ground) was pushing a pram containing her baby and heading to pick up another child from school when she was viciously mauled by two dogs
Outraged locals in an outer Melbourne suburb are asking why it took two savage attacks in 24 hours before the dogs in their neighbourhood (pictured) they had complained about on several occasions were finally seized
The dogs’ owner said that: ‘It’s broken my heart and I’m humiliated. I’m embarrassed.’
But neighbours said what happened was inevitable as the dogs constantly escaped from their backyard and had been terrorising them for months.
‘They’ve been reported many times,’ Mr Jackson said. ‘They scare the hell out of you.’
At least five neighbours said they had complained to the Hume City Council about these dogs, but nothing was ever done.
On one occasion, a neighbour was told they would have to restrain the dogs themselves before the rangers would come out to investigate.
Another local, Anna Jackson, said the incidents on Thursday and Friday were not the first time the dogs had bitten someone.
‘About two or three months ago … the dogs were out and Christopher’s trying to push him away and the dog’s just come at him and bit him on the left leg,’ she said.
When the Hume City Council was asked why the dogs weren’t taken from the property after the first attack, a councillor said there was a ‘process’ to go through.
‘You can’t just go onto a property and take a dog. That’s the problem, even if it does attack you. You’ve got to go through a process,’ Councillor Jack Medcraft said.
The dogs were finally taken away on Saturday and were euthanised.
The two women they attacked remain in hospital, and both of them have had surgery for their injuries.
‘I just really pray for the woman and I hope that she can forgive me,’ the dogs’ owner said.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Hume City Council for further comment.
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