Second dog attacks girl

12.30pm

The owner of a jack russell terrier that bit the end off a girl's nose in Christchurch yesterday has surrendered the dog to authorities to be put down.

The attack on the 4-1/2-year-old girl about 6.30pm yesterday came as Auckland police continued to hunt for a dog that mauled a 7-year-old girl on Friday.

The Christchurch attack happened after the girl put her face through a hole in a fence separating her house from a neighbour's home, and the dog jumped and bit her nose, Christchurch City Council said today.

The girl is to undergo surgery.

Today, Local Government Minister Chris Carter said he would take action over dog control laws after the attack on Auckland 7-year-old Carolina Anderson.

Carolina had half her face ripped off down to the bone when an unrestrained dog, possibly a rottweiler, attacked her in Cox's Bay Reserve in the Auckland suburb of Westmere about 10pm on Friday.

She was rushed to South Auckland's Middlemore Hospital where surgeons tried to reconstruct her face.

The owner of the dog as not come forward and authorities continued the hunt for him and the animal today.

Mr Carter said today the current $1500 fine for owners of dogs that attacked people was inadequate.

"It's horrific and my heart goes out to Carolina and her family, it's just an horrendous attack," he told National Radio. "I've written to all mayors in the country to ask them if existing legislation is adequate to deal with the issues they're facing.

Mr Carter said he "wanted action" now.

He had asked officials do undertake a scoping study to see what changes could be made to current law.

"We want to put the responsibilities on owners to make sure these sort of horrific attacks don't take place."

However, he declined to say exactly what action he was considering.

Mr Carter said he would support Labour MP Steve Chadwick's member's bill, giving dog control officers the power to seize dogs on private property, made a Government bill so it can be heard urgently.

Yesterday, Carolina's father John said the dog's owner should got to jail for years.

"If you're driving a car and you kill somebody and you go away, what is the difference?"

He and friends in the legal and publishing professions would campaign for tougher sentences for the owners of dangerous dogs because current sentences were a "slap on the hand".

"I personally with one of my friends came back here afterwards on the same evening and we found her scalp and a piece of her cheek which we had hoped we could reattach.... "Unfortunately they were unable to reattach them again. They were too dirty."

He said that after two long operations, plastic surgeons had "put her back together as much as they can".

As Mr Anderson rushed his daughter to the doctor, a friend talked to a man who came up to the dog and put a leash on it.

The man is then believed to have given a false name and telephone number to Mr Anderson's friend.

- NZPA