A Bay of Plenty mother covered her five-year-old daughter's body with her own to stop a mauling by a pitbull and pitbull mastiff-cross.

Her eye had to be stitched open, her cheekbone was broken, several of her teeth were crushed and she has no feeling on the left side of her face.

Remarkable story of healing for a Waikato woman savagely mauled by dogs less than a month ago.