Judge gives warning to dog owners

Unpredictable and volatile dogs will not be tolerated even on private property, a judge has warned after a dog attack left an Auckland pensioner with horrific injuries.

The judgment indicated that owners of dangerous dogs could face heavy penalties, even if their dogs were kept behind high fences.

It effectively means they will face the same strict rules as homeowners with swimming pools and hot tubs.

Helen Marion Mackenzie, of Glendowie, faces a jail sentence after Judge David Burns found her guilty of two charges under the Dog Control Act of owning a dog that attacked a person causing serious injury. MacKenzie denied both charges, which carry a penalty of up to three years in prison, a fine of up to $20,000, or both, when she appeared in the Auckland District Court last week.

Judge Burns said that by strengthening the penalties in the Dog Control Act, Parliament had placed a strong obligation on owners to make sure other people were not endangered.

He likened the legislation to swimming pool owners' responsibility to properly fence their pools and safeguard children. Children could have entered Mackenzie's property. The act made no distinction between public and private land, he said.

Dogs that were "volatile, temperamental and likely to easily cause injury" were not to be tolerated.

The conviction is not Mackenzie's first regarding the greyhound-cross dogs. In February last year she was convicted and fined after her dogs attacked another person and a dog. This time the Auckland City Council wants her to go to jail.

Mackenzie owned two dogs that attacked Paul Kelly, then aged 74, when he visited her property on a pre-arranged business appointment in September last year.

The male dogs attacked Kelly's thighs and arms, tearing skin from the top of his left hand down to the knuckles, and biting his right wrist through to the bone. On blood thinning medication, he bled profusely and was unconscious by the time he reached Middlemore Hospital.

Mackenzie broke down giving evidence as she described trying to stop the dogs, which rarely left her side when she was at home.

Later that day she took the dogs, Jesse and James, to be put down. She needed tranquillisers to cope with the trauma of the incident and the loss of her dogs, she told the court.

Defence counsel Greg Morrison argued that Mackenzie had taken all reasonable care to warn people about her dogs.

They were confined behind a high, strong gate with warning signs and a buzzer to gain entry.

Morrison argued that if an owner was prosecuted every time a dog attacked when a visitor ventured on to the property the country would be flooded with prosecutions.

But Judge Burns said most dogs were benign and would not attack.

He questioned why Mackenzie continued to keep dogs that would not obey her. Her decision to put both dogs down on the day of the attack indicated she was aware of how serious the attack was.

Judge Burns remanded Mackenzie until September 20 for sentence, and called for reparation and victim impact reports.

After the trial, Auckland City councillor Cathy Casey, a past president of a dog owners' group which lobbied against increasing restrictions of dogs, said the verdict was fair. "This man was an invited guest on the property. It could have been a child. This man could have been dead."

Many owners thought that as long as a dog was contained behind a fence they had fulfilled their responsibility.

"This is indicating that is not the case. If a charity collector, someone electioneering, or a courier goes on to your property then the dog still needs to be controlled and trained."

Barbara McCarthy, a lawyer who acts for the SPCA and in animal prosecution cases, said she was not surprised at the verdict. "A dog could bite you in someone's lounge while you were watching TV and the owner would still be liable."

But burglars take note. Providing safe passage to the front doorway does not include criminals.

Jackie Wilkinson, manager of service requests for Auckland City Environments, said people who were on a property without a lawful reason would not be viewed sympathetically.

Pensioner scarred for life by attack

Pensioner Paul Kelly thought he was going to die as he tried to stem the bleeding after being attacked by two pet greyhound-cross dogs.

Now 75, he has badly scarred arms and hands. Nerve damage stops him from grasping things firmly.

He can no longer tinker with car engines, play golf or hold a fishing rod. If he picks up a glass, he is likely to drop it.

Ashamed of the scars, he wears gloves to hide his hands and to protect his wounds from the sun.

The attack put him in Middlemore Hospital for nine days and forced him to move from Auckland to Christchurch, where his son could care for him. Nearly a year later, he misses his friends, and hopes to come home.

On September 22 last year, Kelly answered an advertisement about building websites placed by Helen Mackenzie and arranged to meet her at 11am at her home.

But the meeting never happened. Instead Kelly, mistakenly went down a driveway to the back of Mackenzie's property rather than the front door and was attacked by the dogs, which leapt off a balcony and down a 1.8m fence.

"They came over like a pair of bullets ... One went for the left leg and one went for the right."

When Kelly beat the dogs back with his briefcase, they attacked his arms. "If I had fallen over I would have been dead."

By the time Mackenzie pulled the dogs off, Kelly was bleeding badly and in shock. Mackenzie drove him to a medical centre, from where he was transferred to Middlemore Hospital.

The attack, he said, had changed his life. "It's affected my retirement. When you can't do things it knocks your spirit."