Tiny terrier gives his life to save children from pit bull attack

A PLUCKY Jack Russell terrier named George saved five New Zealand children from two marauding pit bulls, but was so severely mauled in the fight he had to be destroyed, his owner said yesterday.

George was playing with the group of children when they returned home from buying sweets at a shop in the small North Island town of Manaia on Sunday when the two pit bulls lunged towards them.

"George was brave - he took them on and he's not even a foot high," his owner, Allan Gay, said. "He jumped in on them; he tried to keep them off.

"If it wasn't for George, those kids would have copped it."

One of the children, Richard Rosewarne, 11, was quoted in the Taranaki Daily News yesterday as saying that George fought with the pit bulls to keep them off his four-year-old brother, Darryl.

"George tried to protect us by barking and rushing at them, but they started to bite him - one on the head and the other on the back," Richard said. "We ran off crying and some people saw what was happening and rescued George."

But nine-year-old George was so badly mauled that a vet had to put him down, Mr Gay said.

"The two pit bulls ripped the skin from his throat and chest and down his back," he said, adding that the tough little terrier had suffered from a bad heart condition.

Mr Gay said the pit bulls' owner had surrendered the pair to dog-control officers and asked that they be destroyed, saying they had launched unprovoked attacks previously.

Graham Young, a South Taranaki District Council official, said the two dogs had been impounded and would probably be destroyed because of the attack.

In New Zealand, the owners of dogs that are judged to be too aggressive can be required to have them neutered and dogs involved in attacks are destroyed.