German Shepherds ripped pet dog to shreds

Dr Caroline Noone told Galway District Court she came out her front door to see her neighbour’s German Shepherds tearing her little dog, Archie, between them.  “They each had one end in their mouths,” she said.

Her neighbour, trainee nurse, Lucia Fahy (31), from Gortnahoe, Ballindooley, Castlegar, pleaded guilty before Galway District Court last month to two separate charges of allowing the dogs to be in a place other than a specified area, while unaccompanied and while not being under proper control on October 13, 2016, contrary to Sections 9 and 27 of the Control of Dogs Act 1986.

The case was adjourned to this week for Dr. Noone to address the court if she so wished.

The doctor told Judge Mary Fahy that at 7.30pm on the evening in question she was at home and on the phone speaking to a patient.

Archie, her five-year-old Yorkshire terrier/Jack Russell cross was on her lap.  The door was ajar and he jumped down and went outside.

As a background, she said there had been an incident nine months earlier when one of the dogs bit her dog on the tummy and the Fahy family were aware of that.

Dr. Noone said on this particular evening she heard high-pitched screeches and she went outside.

“The two dogs were tearing my dog apart.  They each had one end in their mouths.  I threw stones, screamed and threw a bucket of water but there was absolutely no getting them away,” she said.

Dr. Noone said she attempted to shield her dog from the dogs by lying across him, but the German Shepherds “’were very intent on what they were doing’ and kept biting at her hands and she received injuries in the process.  She was dragged along the gravel and sustained cuts to her knees and a shoulder injury.

She explained that her dog, which weighed just four kilos, was completely eviscerated in the attack with its intestines ending up outside its body.

He died five minutes later, she added.

See full court report in this week’s Connacht Tribune.