A MUM was left traumatised after a pocket bully savaged her autistic son’s therapy dog so badly he had to be put down.
Karen Hawthornthwaite was taking Benji, a tiny Lhasa Apso, for a morning walk when he was suddenly set upon in a brutal attack outside her home in Lancashire.
Benji’s injuries were so severe that his front leg was amputated before Karen was forced to put him to sleep a week later.
The attack took a devastating toll on Karen and her family, and she says she still suffers from the trauma of that day nearly twelve months on.
On the morning of April 29, Karen was taking Benji for his routine walk in the neighbourhood when she spotted a “pocket bully” off its lead.
She told The Sun: “It ran straight into the road, into the main road. I said to myself ‘that dog’s not safe, it’s going to get run over’.
“I couldn’t see anybody with it.”
As Karen arrived home, she was chatting to a neighbour outside her front gate when the horror unfolded.
“Next thing I hear is an almighty shriek,” she recalls.
In horrific CCTV footage, the Bully can be seen off the lead and without a muzzle with its owner before it spots Karen’s beloved family pet from the opposite side of the street.
With Benji in its sights, it races across the road as its owner desperately tries to hold it back.
Unable to stop the dog from attacking, it latches onto Benji’s throat and front leg, violently shaking him from side to side as both Karen and the owner try and pull them apart.
“I can’t even explain what it was like. It just wasn’t letting go,” Karen said.
“The pocket bully’s mouth was covered in blood. Benji was covered in blood. I had blood all over me.”
Her screams alerted her neighbours who tried to intervene to separate the two dogs.
“This fella was just absolutely smacking the hell out of this dog and it wasn’t budging. Another neighbour started hitting it, but nothing,” Karen added.
“There was no control over that dog at all. We were scared ourselves, if he did let go, he’d have gone for one of us.
“Eventually the owner of this dog managed to get him off Benji.”
After screaming at him to get the dog away as it still tried to attack Benji, Karen said the owner returned and apologised saying “she’s never done anything like this before”.
“I said ‘that dog is not right’. I was obviously fuming. I can’t explain what I was feeling. It was just heartbreak,” Karen said.
“My friend heard the scream from the street after and she’d come round, seen me holding Benji and she’s crying.
“She’d seen me crying and she looks at me and I just shook my head saying, ‘it’s not good’.”
Benji was raced to the vets and was “swollen black and blue with blood everywhere”.
His injuries were initially so bad that they “couldn’t even look at him”, and Benji later had to have his front-left leg amputated.
But vets’ efforts were in vain as Karen eventually had to have Benji put to sleep – six years to the day after she had brought him home.
Nearly a year after the attack, Karen says she still suffers from the trauma of what happened.
She said: “I’ve had no sleep for weeks. I’ve had nightmares, flashbacks, you name it.
“As soon as I go out my front door, all I can see near the lamp post is Benji and him looking at me.”
The family later welcomed Luna – a working cocker spaniel – to the family but Karen can no longer do the morning dog walk.
If her husband is away working, she can’t leave the house.
Karen and her husband initially got Benji as a way of trying to get their autistic son Riley, 17, to leave the house.
Benji ended up becoming a therapy dog and he “would come downstairs and play with him”.
“It’s had a massive impact on him. He was absolutely heartbroken,” Karen said.
Cops said the incident didn’t meet “any offences under the Dangerous Dog Act”.
The owner was given an Acceptable Behaviour Contract (ABC) with conditions including keeping the dog on a lead at all times in residential areas.
But Karen argues: “Who’s going to monitor this?”
Her belief is that the bully is dangerous and should have been destroyed after the attack.
She blasted the police as “absolutely useless” after pulling her “from pillar to post” – and she called for changes to the Dangerous Dog Act to also encompass dog-on-dog attacks.
A spokesperson for Lancashire Police said: “Having thoroughly reviewed all the circumstances and sought expert advice, it was deemed that this incident did not meet the criteria of any offences under the Dangerous Dog Act.
“However, in order to reduce the likelihood of a similar incident happening again, the owner of the pocket bulldog was given an Acceptable Behaviour Contract under the ASB, Crime and Policing Act, 2014 with specific conditions which include ensuring their dog is on a lead at all times in residential areas.”
