Third dog attack
By: CECÍLIA PIRES
A 57 YEAR-OLD woman was attacked by a Pit Bull dog in Faro on Thursday (September, 6), the third dog attack in just one week in the city.
The woman, who is a dog owner, was attacked as she was heading to work at 8.30am in the Bom João neighbourhood.
The immediate intervention of the dog’s owner, who was just 50 metres from the incident, avoided a more serious situation.
The dog was sent to the Loulé kennel, where it will wait until a decision is made about its future by the Direcção Regional de Veterinária, the local authority on veterinary issues.
This was the third dog attack in Faro in just one week. Previously, another Pit Bull dog attacked a ten-year-old boy in the Riamar area of the city.
On September 4, a 19-year-old girl was attacked by a mongrel in Rua Ivens, one of the busy streets at the down town commercial area of Faro. António Madeira, Director of the Faro department of the Direcção Regional de Veterinária, told The Resident that these situations do not reflect an unusual increase of dog attacks. “The media are just more aware of these cases”, he explains.
Quaratine
He added that all the dogs are now waiting in quarantine for the legal departments to analyse the seriousness of the attacks, based on the police and medical reports.
António Madeira said people should not be alarmed, but “they must be worried” about the abandoned dogs in villages and cities in the region.
The Veterinary director also suggested that people must ask for more police intervention on this issue.
“If a person sees a dog abandoned, don’t feed it. You must call the local authorities,” he said. He also issued a reminder that dogs are not allowed in public places without a muzzle and lead and people must report such incidents “for their own safety”.
Although António Madeira didn’t confirm that there is a growing number of attacks from dogs in the region, police reports show that there has been an increase in the number of such cases.
At present, eight of the 16 districts in the Algarve region do not have a public kennel to accommodate abandoned animals.
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