A MUM from Covingham is urging to dog owners to take responsibility for their pets, after her son was traumatised by seeing the family pet attacked.

Hannah Packer says her seven-year-old son Harry is now refusing to go out on walks after having to witness his faithful golden retriever, Maggie, being attacked three times in recent weeks while out walking.

“One of the reasons we got Maggie was as a social lifeline for Harry who has autism,” said Hannah.

“But in the last three weeks she’s been attacked three times, and Harry is now completely panicked about going out.”

The last two incidents have been in Stratton Woods.

Hannah said: “The most recent incident happened on Sunday when we were walking along a path, and a man was approaching with a white Alsatian type of dog off the lead.

“One of the ways we get Harry out is to take a football with us for him to kick, and the man asked us to pick it up as he thought his dog might try to play with it and puncture it.

“At that point, Maggie appeared – she was off the lead and had been exploring – and the white dog just went for her,” said Hannah.

“It was chasing her, pinned her down and was biting at her: the owner eventually kicked it away, and said if there was any blood he would apologise.

"But by then Harry was just standing there holding his football, screaming and screaming. I was really scared that the white dog would go for the ball and hurt Harry too.”

Although Maggie wasn’t injured, the whole family were shaken.

Now Hannah says her son is still talking about the incident.

“Harry now associates the woods with attacks on Maggie,” said Hannah.

And he’s refusing to go out. On some days he finds it difficult to go out anyway, so this is impacting on our family life as well as on his emotional and mental health.”

Hannah contacted the Adver saying it is time for owners to take more responsibility for their dogs and their behaviour.

She said: “If you choose to have a dog, you should teach it to be friendly and socialised. If owners can’t trust their dog to behave then they should keep it on the lead so it can’t attack other pets.”

It’s against the law to let a dog be dangerously out of control anywhere, such as in a public place; in a private place such as a neighbour’s house or garden; in the owner’s home and the law applies to all dogs.

A dog is considered dangerously out of control if it injures someone or makes someone worried that it might injure them.

A court could decide that a dog is dangerously out of control if it attacks someone’s animal or the owner of an animal thinks they could be injured if they tried to stop your dog attacking their animal.

A farmer is allowed to kill your dog if it’s worrying their livestock.