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A large dog which bit a three-year-old boy has escaped the death penalty because animal control staff say the child provoked the animal by pulling on its testicles.
The boy's mother called for the dog to be put down after it attacked him, leaving him with facial injuries, outside a Hamilton house on December 29.
But Hamilton City Council has stood by the decision of its animal control staff, who say the neapolitan mastiff-cross dog was provoked.
The dog's owner had offered up the dog for destruction but two independent witnesses reported seeing the boy deliberately leave the house and harming the dog by squeezing its testicles.
Animal control staff believed the dog had acted in its own defence, and after assessing its behaviour and "completely clean record" they decided it did not need to be put down.
The investigation also revealed the child had been involved in two previous incidents of alleged animal cruelty.
The boy spent three nights at Waikato Hospital with cuts round his eye and lacerations inside his mouth where his cheek had been separated from his jaw.
"There was damage to the nerves in his cheek which has caused his lip to droop, and he'll need surgery at a later date to rectify that," his mother said.
- NZPA
