Derek Achong

A fam­i­ly of dog breed­ers was thrown in­to mourn­ing af­ter one of their pit­bull ter­ri­ers mauled an 82-year-old grand­moth­er to death at their Mar­aval home yes­ter­day morn­ing.Short­ly af­ter 9 am, Lil­lian Bun­see, of La Sei­va Road, was in her yard when a fe­male dog at­tacked her, pinned her to the ground and be­gan bit­ing her neck.Po­lice said neigh­bours who were walk­ing in the road saw the at­tack and be­gan throw­ing stones at the dog to dis­tract it but their ef­forts were in vain.The dog let go of Bun­see on­ly af­ter po­lice ar­rived and shot it six times. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the an­i­mal was roam­ing the yard freely and was not kept in an en­clo­sure or on a chain.

When a team from the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the scene yes­ter­day, some of Bun­see's neigh­bours ex­pressed shock over the in­ci­dent while oth­ers said they were not sur­prised since yes­ter­day was the sec­ond time the pen­sion­er had been at­tacked by her rel­a­tive's dogs."Even the own­er's fa­ther does have to call his son to meet him by the gate be­cause he afraid of them dogs," one res­i­dent said.An­oth­er res­i­dent, who al­so wished to re­main uniden­ti­fied, claimed Bun­see's rel­a­tives had been breed­ing pit­bull ter­ri­ers for some time and es­ti­mat­ed that at least ten dogs were be­ing kept on the prop­er­ty.The res­i­dents said they were con­cerned about the num­ber of dogs on the prop­er­ty but did not com­plain to au­thor­i­ties as the dogs had nev­er at­tacked neigh­bours and pedes­tri­ans in the past.

Sev­er­al oth­er large dogs, re­sem­bling pit­bulls, were locked in cages and ken­nels, in the garage area, while the killer dog's body lay in the yard near Bun­see's house.There were blood­stains on the walls near where the an­i­mal was killed and where Bun­see's body re­mained af­ter the at­tack un­til she was re­moved. The res­i­dents claimed the dogs' own­er car­ried out "ag­gres­sion and obe­di­ence" train­ing with the an­i­mals on the premis­es."With those type of dogs, the high-po­ten­cy dog food they were us­ing and that train­ing, that whole sit­u­a­tion was a time bomb wait­ing to ex­plode," one man said.He felt pit­bull own­ers should ex­er­cise "re­spon­si­ble dog own­er­ship" and not breed and train their an­i­mals in res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties."This is not the prop­er place for dog-breed­ing and train­ing. That should be done at a pri­vate fa­cil­i­ty far away from peo­ple and chil­dren," an­oth­er res­i­dent said.

Bun­see was pro­nounced dead on the scene by a dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer (DMO).In­ves­ti­ga­tors or­dered un­der­tak­ers to re­move the dog's car­cass from the prop­er­ty. Po­lice said it was ex­pect­ed to be ex­am­ined by a vet to de­ter­mine its ex­act breed.Po­lice al­so ar­rest­ed one of the dogs' own­ers, a 32-year-old rel­a­tive of Bun­see. He re­mained de­tained at the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion, St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, up to yes­ter­day evening and was be­ing ques­tioned by de­tec­tives of the Port-of-Spain CID.Res­i­dent George Hogan, who said he sur­vived an at­tack by the dogs, called for them to be put down.A se­nior po­lice source said in­ves­ti­ga­tors planned to con­sult lawyers from the Po­lice Ser­vice's Le­gal De­part­ment lat­er this week to de­ter­mine whether crim­i­nal charges could be laid.The source said the charges may be laid un­der the Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act of 2000. That act was re­placed by the Dog Con­trol Act, which was passed in Par­lia­ment last month but which is still await­ing procla­ma­tion by the Pres­i­dent.

Af­ter the maul­ing, the dog own­er left sev­en of his nine re­main­ing dogs in the care of Dr Az­izul Ra­haman, of the Jones An­i­mal Clin­ic, which is about 200 me­tres away from where the in­ci­dent oc­curred.Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day evening, Ra­haman said the own­er de­cid­ed to re­move the dogs in prepa­ra­tion for rel­a­tives vis­it­ing the fam­i­ly's home for Bun­see's wake and fu­ner­al and al­so be­cause he had re­ceived com­plaints from some of his neigh­bours af­ter the maul­ing.Ra­haman said the own­er had not de­cid­ed whether he would be tak­ing the dogs back or if he would eu­thanise them.In­sp Pow­der, Sgt Charles and PC Ab­erdeen are as­sist­ing in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

AG Com­ments

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, said yes­ter­day amend­ments to the Dog Con­trol Act will be a "pri­or­i­ty item" dur­ing the new ses­sion of Par­lia­ment.His com­ment come in the wake of the maul­ing to death of Mar­aval pen­sion­er Lil­lan Bun­see yes­ter­day.In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day evening, Ram­lo­gan said sev­er­al is­sues were raised by the Op­po­si­tion and In­de­pen­dent bench dur­ing the de­bate in the Sen­ate on the new leg­is­la­tion.

He said al­though the is­sues were raised, the leg­is­la­tion was nev­er­the­less passed by both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment to pre­vent the act from laps­ing at the end of the last par­lia­men­tary ses­sion.

"I have re­ceived the sug­ges­tions from the In­de­pen­dent bench but I am still wait­ing on the Op­po­si­tion's re­spons­es," Ram­lo­gan said.The leg­is­la­tion, which Ram­lo­gan pi­lot­ed, is aimed at re­plac­ing the Dan­ger­ous Dog Act of 2000. The new leg­is­la­tion seeks to clas­si­fy cer­tain breeds of dan­ger­ous dogs and reg­u­late the man­ner in which they are kept by their own­ers.The leg­is­la­tion al­so re­quires own­ers to have in­sur­ance for the cer­tain dogs clas­si­fied un­der the act and, like the old­er leg­is­la­tion, states penal­ties for own­ers whose dogs at­tack or kill peo­ple.