A dog owner from has spoken of her terror after an ‘XL Bully’ left her with a number of injuries. Julia Critchley was walking in Accrington with her two small cockapoos at around 12.30pm, during a lunch break from work.
During her usual walk, Julia was walking towards the cemetery in Accrington and noticed a man standing with a dog on Whitewell Drive. However, after passing the man and faintly hearing the words “be careful”, it was already too late for Julia.
Talking to LancsLive about the ordeal, she despite the warning it was too late to react. “Literally, the next minute, this huge dog came charging over to me and was all over my girls. There was a man walking, I asked is this your dog? It wasn’t and he carried on walking, he didn’t help,” she said.
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“There was a man on the opposite corner of Balmoral Road and he looked down but walked in and he would have heard me screaming but would have just thought I was walking the dogs at this stage. The next minute, it was trying to impregnate my two little babies, they’re only eight kilograms but just from a different litter,” she said.
Julia recalls not being able to get away, with the large dog continuously jumping up and intimidating her and her two dogs. She believes the dog could have been an XL Bully – a breed which carries strict rules on ownership after a number of fatal attacks across the country.
“For the next 10 to 15 minutes, I was getting hold of my dogs and throwing them over the wall,” Julia added. “It jumped over there and tried to mate with both of them.”
“I got them back over the other side and I didn’t lash out, I just tried to sort of tap it to get away but I was scared. My friend a year ago had a massive chunk bite taken out of her leg, so I was frightened of it doing that. It scratched me, I’ve got 60 lacerations – some have bled and I had to have a tetanus. I couldn’t breathe, I’ve got asthma and I was petrified for my life. I was screaming, I just thought there was nobody that couldn’t hear me, but there was nowhere I could go.”
Julia recalls a young man coming to her aid, but states they were the only person who helped. She continued: “I was petrified for my life, I thought I was going to die.”
Calling the police, they arrived on the scene but Julia says she didn’t receive much help from anyone at the time. “He had no empathy, no duty of care and didn’t ask, are you alright love? You’re clearly distressed. I was shaking and going through the worst experience I had ever been through in my life.”
After the incident, Julia says she has bruising all over her body and is currently unable to work as a result of the incident, but is hoping to warn others against suffering a horrifying attack. She is also hoping to claim the vet fees back, which she had to pay in order to check whether either of her dogs had fallen pregnant.
A spokesperson for Lancashire Constabulary said: “We received a report of a dog having caused an injury to a woman on Whitewell Road in Accrington, at around 1pm Wednesday (July 3). Officers and our colleagues from the ambulance service attended, and thankfully the woman was only found to have minor injuries to her legs, and she was treated at the scene. A dog has been seized whilst our officers carry out enquiries.”
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