Dog victim's father says owner should be banned

The father of a 5-year-old girl attacked by a dog in Auckland yesterday wants the owner banned from having a dog.

Graeme Newell told the Herald last night that the female owner of the german shepherd-labrador cross that attacked his daughter at a Grey Lynn supermarket was not fit to own a dog.

"What you've got here is a mismatch of an unfortunate dog and an unfortunate person," he said.

The woman had told his daughter, whose name he did not want printed, that it was all right to pat the 1-year-old dog despite having owned it for just three days.

The attack left the little girl with a lacerated left nostril and a hole the size of a $1 coin in her cheek.

She was operated on at Middlemore Hospital last night to repair her nostril and reattach a flap of skin left hanging from her cheek. Her father said she was recovering well and was likely to be out of hospital today.

But he was angry that the dog's owner, who was sitting outside the supermarket with the dog on a leash when the attack happened, told his daughter that the dog was "friendly and nice to children".

Auckland City Council dog control spokesman Geoff Atherfold said last night that the dog had been handed over to authorities and would be put down.

He said the incident was a reminder that dog owners needed to watch their pets around children.

The council had not decided whether to prosecute the owner.