Killer Dogs Slipping Bureaucratic Net

BRAYDEN Hatton was woken at 3:30am on Sunday to the sounds of dogs barking and his cows bellowing on his property north of Muswellbrook.

When he ran outside he saw a great dane and a Staffordshire terrier taking down one of his calves and he estimates it took him five minutes to pry the dogs of his animal.

WARNING: Graphic images are in this story.

Brayden managed to capture both dogs and posted a message on a community noticeboard in an effort to find the owners, prompting other people to come forward with stories of the same dogs attacking animals between the Muswellbrook and Aberdeen area.

All people scone.com.au spoke to said they had reported the matters to police and Council, but all were told it was not a police matter and Council advised on each occasion the ranger was not available.

“I was trying to stop it attacking the calf but it could have turned on me,” said Mr Hutton.

“And if there was a child walking around early hours of a morning, because people often catch up with friends around a fire, it could easily be them,” he said.

“When I first put the post on Facebook I didn’t know they had already caused so much damage,” he said.

“I want to know that these dogs won’t be handed back to their owners and I want to know that these owners won’t be allowed to own dogs again.

Before the dogs mauled Mr Hutton’s calf, they mauled a goat across the road from where he lives and just after 9pm on Saturday the dogs killed their first animal for the night, a beloved rag-doll cat owned by Diane Warton which she saw torn apart in front of her as she stood in her driveway at her Muswellbrook home.

“My daughter was coming to her house to pick up her six-year-old son after she finished work and Sam (the cat) had the habit of waiting for her and coming in with her,” said Ms Warton.

“I heard the horn honking and when I came out the dogs were on him, he was trying to get away but they got him and dragged him back,” she said.

“I yelled at the dogs and they tried to come back and my daughter came in and got a blanket to wrap him up but he was gone; it was like they were feeding off him, like when you see a documentary and you see the lions rip the meat, that is what they were doing to him,” she said.

“That’s what I’m worried about what it was my grandson, often he would run outside when my daughter arrived and it could have been him.

“My daughter rang the police but they told her there was not much they could do because the dogs weren’t here anymore and when we rang Council we were told there were no rangers available.

“I know we are a country town and I know the Council budgets are tight and I know the police are understaffed, but it just sometimes feels like the levels of protection aren’t what they should be,” she said.

“If it was in Sydney there’d be police and rangers everywhere with tranquilliser guns,” Diane Warton said.

June Abbott, who lives half way between Aberdeen and Muswellbrook, had encountered the dogs at the end of May when they attacked her stud miniature goat.

“It would have been about 4:30 in the morning when we heard a dog outside so I ran outside and I saw a great dane in the paddock, a collie take off and I found a blue and white staffy at my front gate,” said Ms Abbott.

“They ripped his ear off, they shattered his ankle, they just about scalped him all behind his horns was ripped up and you could see the skull and various bites on his legs, bleeding from the muzzle, he was pretty mangled and we had to put him down,” she said.

“Kids are what we were really concerned about with these dogs, because the great dane isn’t small and the staffy it wouldn’t be anything for them to knock a kid over,” she said.

“I feel bad that these are someone’s pets that are going to be destroyed, but at the same time if the ranger had of answered his phone we might have been able to sort this out before someone’s cat died,” June Abbott said.

The ranger has yet to return Ms Abbott’s phone message or collect the dogs from Mr Hutton’s place.