Tiny terrier saves children from pit bull attack

A JACK RUSSELL terrier with heart problems saved five children from two savage pit bulls, but paid with its life, his owner said yesterday.

The foot-high dog, George, nine, was playing with the children as they returned home from buying sweets at a neighbourhood shop in the small North Island town of Manaia, New Zealand, when the two pit bull terriers appeared and lunged towards them, his owner Allan Gay said.

“George was brave – he took them on and he’s not even a foot high,” 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, told the Taranaki Daily News 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,” Rosewarne said.

George was so badly mauled that a vet had to put him down, Gay said.

“The two pit bulls ripped the skin from his throat and chest and down his back,” he said.