Alerted to dog attack by her screams

"I heard a woman screaming. I thought someone was getting bashed."
That's how a shocked resident of Harold Ave, Kaikohe, described what turned out to be the second attack by a dog in her street in less than a fortnight.
The attack on Saturday left Sue Harris, a Kaikohe resident aged in her 50s, with serious bites to her arms and legs. She had been walking to work. Ms Harris was taken to Whangarei Hospital where she was to have undergone surgery and was yesterday reported in a comfortable condition.
The dog, which was unregistered and believed to be a black staffordshire terrier-cross, had knocked her to the ground and savagely mauled her. It was shot by police soon after.
The shocked neighbour, Cynthia Moran, said she believed it was the fourth dog attack in the area in a year and residents wanted the Far North District Council to take urgent action "before someone is killed".
"We have begged and pleaded and tried to ask for more resources to be put into this area."
The attack comes less than a fortnight after a nine-year-old boy was left with serious injuries to his upper body after being attacked by an american pitbull on the same street. That dog was impounded.
Another neighbour, who declined to be named, said the council had previously ignored warnings about the seriousness of the dog problem in Kaikohe.
However, Far North Mayor Yvonne Sharp said they were working hard to solve the dog problem. She vowed to do all she could to prevent further attacks. "The dog problem is huge ... particularly in Kaikohe," she said.
"I am certainly concerned. We must continue to do everything we have been doing and we need to do more. We have been throwing a lot of resources into the dog problem and just this week we did a huge sweep with particular attention on that particular area. We picked up a lot of unregistered dogs but the dog involved in this attack wasn't there," she said.
The council had been patrolling the area at night, setting dog traps and door-knocking residents to get unregistered dogs off the streets. "We thought we had it under control but obviously we haven't and we have to put more effort into it," Mrs Sharp said.
"I have absolutely no time for these people who are totally irresponsible dog owners. People have a right to walk the streets without being attacked."
Mrs Sharp said the council could not put a "dog ranger on every street", so it was perhaps time to screen potential dog owners before letting them take ownership of animals.
"I think possibly there should be a law change. We should be registering dog owners. There should be a criteria before you register a dog, that's my personal view.
"If the onus was on people to prove they were responsible dog owners we wouldn't have a proliferation of badly controlled dogs owned by people with no social responsibility," she said.
"I am a responsible dog owner and I have contempt for people who don't care for other people's health and wellbeing and don't manage their animals."
Mrs Moran said Ms Harris had been walking along Harold Ave at 6.30am on Saturday when the attack happened.
"I heard a woman screaming, I thought someone was getting bashed. I went on to the street and a group of young people were running. They said a lady was on the ground with a big dog on her."
She found Ms Harris sitting on a roadside kerb "rocking and in shock" following the attack. A girl was holding the dog by the scruff of the neck beside Ms Harris. "It had a chain around its neck and my husband chained it to a tree," Mrs Moran said.
Police had arrived soon after and shot the dog, she said. "They killed it right on the spot which was wonderful. One kid went ballistic when they shot it."
The owner of the dog has not been located.