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Dog bites are a major public health problem and can result in horrific injuries, long term health issues, psychological distress, and death. Between 2004-2014 in New Zealand, 4958 people were hospitalised due to dog bites. Besides the burden on the health system, the cost to the county is estimated at $3.29 million per year. Data from the New Zealand Ministry of Health indicates that children under the age of 10 are the most vulnerable with most dog bite injuries happening in private residences or homes. Dogs are also responsible for attacks on and the death of kiwi, penguin, livestock and pets.
Dog-related injury claims and payouts
- 2001: 8353 claims
- 2002: 8197 claims
- 2003: 7995 claims
- 2004: 9542 claims
- 2005: 10,292 claims, $2.1m payout
- 2006: 10,438 claims, $2.5m payout
- 2007: 10,646 claims, $3.0m payout
- 2008: 10,552 claims, $3.0m payout
- 2009: 10,844 claims, $2.2m payout
- 2010: 11,250 claims, $2.1m payout
- 2011: 11,981 claims, $2.0m payout
- 2012: 12,060 claims, $2.3m payout
- 2013: 12,693 claims, $2.3m payout
- 2014: 12,931 claims, $2.7m payout
- 2015: 13,135 claims, $2.8m payout
- 2016: 13,826 claims, $3.1m payout
- 2017: 14,165 claims, $3.1m payout
- 2018: 15,013 claims, $3.7m payout
- 2022: 12,406 claims
Source: ACC & Newspaper Reports (figures rounded)
New Zealand Dog Control Act 1996
Each council in New Zealand sets its own canine laws but the obligations of dog owners are clear under the New Zealand Dog Control Act 1996;
- to ensure that the dog is kept under control at all times.
- to take all reasonable steps to ensure that the dog does not injure, endanger, intimidate, or otherwise cause distress to any person.
- to take all reasonable steps to ensure that the dog does not injure, endanger, or cause distress to any stock, poultry, domestic animal, or protected wildlife.
A law change in 2003 banned imports of the American pitbull terrier, dogo Argentino, Brazilian fila, and Japanese tosa. In 2001 another breed, the perro de presa canario, was also banned.
Fatal dog attacks in Aotearoa New Zealand
- 1885: Child Brooker of Carlton Place, Christchurch, died from the effects of a dog-bite. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TS18850604.2.29.2
- 1900: Drummond – died at Ashhurst suddenly after being bitten by a dog – likely blood poisoning caused by the bite of a dog. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19000308.2.3.3
- 1904: Child died at Waihi Hospital, dog bite on the cheek below the eye failed to heal and two months later child died. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/PBH19040916.2.27.6
- 1936: 70-year-old James Silver of Hastings died on 16 May as a result of a dog biting him on the thigh the month prior https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/HBTRIB19360528.2.87
- 1969: Farmer killed by a mixed-breed farm dog.
- 1997: 59-year-old Koro Maruki Dinsdale was found dead behind his home near Te Puke. He was bitten over 90 percent of his body. Koro was looking after a bull-terrier-cross for a friend and also had one of his own. Both dogs were trained to hunt pigs. Police said it appeared Dinsdale had tried to intervene when both dogs started fighting
- 2003: 73-year-old dog breeder Yvonne Harris of Northland dies after being bitten on the foot by one of her three pure-bred Alaskan malamutes. The bite hits an artery and she bleeds to death in her chair.
- 2004: 39-year-old Carol Leanne Taylor was savaged to death by her pet bull mastiff dog at Caversham in Dunedin. Most of the injuries were found on the victim's face, neck and skull. The attack started inside the house, then the dog dragged her outside and the attack continued.
- 2007: 56-year-old Virginia Ohlson of Murupara is attacked by a pit bull terrier and a Staffordshire cross in a suburban street. She lost a large amount of blood and died of shock in an ambulance on the way to hospital.
- 2013: 31-year-old Chloe Jane Mathewson savaged by three rottweilers at a semi-rural property in Redvale in Auckland. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/attack-not-the-first-for-killer-dogs/...
- 2020: One-day-old baby Jaxon was mauled by the family’s Rottweiler which then dragged the baby into the garden to try and bury him at their home in Enderley, Hamilton. Jaxon died 24 hours later in Waikato Hospital. Jaxon's father, Anton Zabiyaka, had been released from prison, but had died the previous April from a suspected suicide.
- 2022: 69-year-old Neville Thomson. Attacked by four dogs he was housing for a friend on his Pānguru property. Three dogs were shot by police in the days after the attack, and 25 were taken to a Far North District Council pound in Kaitāia. The dogs were neapolitan mastiff crosses and bulldog crosses.
"Dogs kill people in New Zealand. If you own dogs and they kill somebody you should certainly be charged with manslaughter." - Professor Kevin Stafford (2016, Massey University).
Non-fatal dog attacks with long-term consequences
- 2003: 7-year-old Carolina Anderson was mauled in an Auckland park by an American Staffordshire terrier and has required years of reconstructive surgery.
- 2009: 2-year-old Aotea Coxon is savaged by a dog in a Christchurch park, requiring 290 stitches and a plate inserted in his broken jaw.
- 2010: 8-year-old AJ Maninoa is left with "half his face hanging off" after a pitbull attack in Henderson, Auckland.
- 2010: 21-year-old Holly Prebble, a pet store assistant, lost 40 per cent of her lower lip and received puncture wounds to her face and arms in a dog attack at a "bring in your Rottweilers" promotion in West Auckland.
- 2011: 9-year-old Cameron Pita is attacked by a weimaraner-shorthaired pointer cross at a friends house. He was left with a huge tear in his cheek and bites to his arm, chest and stomach. Surgeons operated for four hours, putting 70 stitches in his face, 12 in his arm and six in his chest.
- 2011: 5-year-old Rylee is attacked by a foxy/jack russell-cross in West Auckland. The bite narrowly missed her jugular, but she sustained injuries to her lip, nose, chin and neck.
- 2011: Liz Smith is savagely beaten by her sister and receives tears to her scalp, ears, nose and lips after her sister set her pit bull on her in Welcome Bay, Tauranga. Phillipa Bayley, 55, was sentenced in Tauranga District Court on a charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm after using her dog to inflict horrific injuries on her sister. The judge said that the seriousness of the injuries, the prolonged length of time the attack lasted, the attacks to Ms Smith's head and the use of a weapon made it a very serious assault. Phillipa Bayley received a seven-year jail sentence.
- 2011: 3-year-old Charlize Allen is left with a "chunk of skin" missing from her face after she was mauled by a bull mastiff outside of an Addington dairy in Christchurch. Charlize needed more than 30 stitches and was left with a black eye.
- 2011 [?]: 5-year-old girl bitten multiple times on the chest and back and dragged up the driveway by a neighbour's cross-breed dog.
- 2011 [?]: 8-year-old boy who was bitten on the face, arm, chest and side by a pitbull while playing in a driveway. The dog had allegedly got in through an open gate.
- 2011:18-month-old baby savaged by the family pitbull.
- 2011: 4-year-old Ben Oliver bitten in the face by a bull mastiff-great dane as the family was walking past a Titirangi cafe. He received more than 30 stitches to hold the four bite marks on his lower cheek together.
- 2013: 11-month-old Kailah McLaren savaged by the family's staffordshire bull terrier in Dunedin leaving her with a broken jaw and severe facial cuts.
- 2013: Linda Harrison lost most of her lower lip in an attack by an English bull terrier in the Porirua suburb of Camborne.Despite surgical reconstruction, she had been unable to eat, drink or speak normally since. Owner Gretel Fairbrother hid the dog for nearly 18 months following the attack.
- 2014: 7-year-old Sakurako Uehara is attacked by four Staffordshire bull terrier-crosses in Murupara and almost killed. She received more than 100 bites to her face, limbs, and almost "every part of her body" in the ferocious attack. She will need years of reconstructive surgery.
- 2014: 3-year-old Toby Saunders attacked by a rottweiler at the Groynes dog park in Christchurch. The dog began to circle Caroline Saunders and her two children, George, 2, and Toby, 3. Saunders picked up George, then turned to pick up Toby when she saw the rottweiler on top of Toby, mauling him while he lay on the ground. She managed to pick Toby up but the dog lunged at the preschooler again and continued the attack. Toby suffered bites to his buttocks, thighs and right calf and was hospitalised for four days, requiring two surgeries and numerous stitches to close 10 wounds.
- 2015: 6-year-old Tainui Hartley-Whareaorere mauled by his grandfather's farm dog in the Bay of Plenty.
- 2015: A woman was attacked by three Irish wolfhounds while delivering mail in Dunedin. The attack was so vicious the woman recalled thinking she was going to die. The woman would require multiple operations, including plastic surgery, and it was not yet known if she would walk again, as one of her calf muscles was "virtually all gone".
- 2015: Actress Kirstie O'Sullivan is bitten by an unleashed dog on Pt Chevalier beach, leaving behind a 13cm puncture wound to her leg and right buttock.The dog is suspected as being a leonberger or English bull mastiff.
- 2016: 78-year-old Olga Afanassieva was walking to the bus stop, when a pitbull terrier and a bulldog attacked and dragged her to the ground in Cannons Creek, Porirua.
- 2016: 23-year-old woman, 30 weeks pregnant, attacked by a staffordshire-cross dog.
- 2016: 7-year-old Darnell Mikaere Minarapa-Brown attacked by his uncle's 3-year-old pitbull terrier in Takanini, leaving him needing more than 150 stitches in his face and a two metal plates over broken bones in his cheek and nose. The dog came back for a second go as the family waited for an ambulance. A woman in the house was bitten as she leapt in the way of the dog.
- 2016: 72-year-old Christchurch woman was attacked by as she cycled to her Burnside home. She was left with a 15-centimetre gash in her leg and expected to spend a week in hospital as she recovered.
- 2016: 2-year-old boy mauled by a 2-year-old male American pit bull terrier-cross in Christchurch.
- 2016: A woman was attacked by two dogs on a South Auckland property.
- 2016: Blockhouse Bay Intermediate School went into lockdown after a teacher was attacked by two vicious dogs on school grounds.
- 2016: Three Kings Primary in the Auckland suburb of Mt Eden went into lockdown after five children were bitten by stray dogs. The dogs were a black labrador cross and a German shepherd/staffordshire bull terrier cross.
- 2016: 10-year-old Lorenzo Shoemark had his face badly bitten by his best friend's family dog at Waiuku. The large cross-breed dog left him with two deep bite wounds on his face, and two more on his ear.
- 2016: 3-year-old savaged in Drury after grabbing a pitbull's testicles.
- 2019: 2-year-old Amelia-Jayne Morphus was attacked by a dog outside her house. "She had a hole in her mouth which had been cut near her lip, she had a cut under her eye that got her tear duct, the dog had also ripped a tooth out."
- 2019: Larissa Corboy and her dog Mouse were mauled by a pack of five dogs including staffy-pitbulls while out for a run on a public track in the rural Canterbury community of Loburn. When the owner did get out of his car, the dogs turned on him as he tried to intervene. Corboy spent two days in hospital having surgery to repair the deep bite wounds on her leg.
- 2020: 2-year-old Maxin Bennett is attacked in Hastings by his great uncle's staffie and airlifted to Christchurch Hospital for emergency surgery. His face was ripped so badly that his teeth were left exposed.
- 2020: 7-year-old boy mauled by two dogs outside Rongomai School in Ōtara. "Chunks of flesh" were ripped from his arm during the attack. It is thought a "tan dog", possibly a red nose pitbull, was responsible.
- 2020: 6-year-old girl left with puncture wounds and grazes following a dog attack in Timaru.
- 2020: 9-year-old Christiana Holt is attacked in shallow water at Eastern Beach by a staffy-cross. She was treated for multiple lacerations in and around her ear.
- 2020: Two dogs attack a tourist at Bruce Pullman Park in South Auckland, dragging him to the ground and lunging for his throat. A pitbull mix and a rottweiler mix.
- 2021: 3-year-old Sabbath Dietrich is attacked by a Shar Pei / Bullmastiff cross at a beach in north Taranaki resulting in a "massive slice" across his face. He was flown to Waikato Hospital.
- 2021: Tauranga veterinary surgeon Liza Schneider is attacked by a large Rottweiler in the Holistic Vets carpark, requiring surgery for torn muscles and a broken bone in her arm. She underwent surgery where a plate and six screws were installed in her arm. The dog was being held by the 13-year-old son of Tauranga woman Helen Tina Fraser who had charges against her dismissed. Schneider has permanent scarring and still cannot lift some animals. "At the end of the day, we have a veterinarian who was seriously injured by a dog that was not appropriately controlled. It is upsetting that the judgment is implicitly blaming her for that," said New Zealand Veterinary Association chief executive Kevin Bryant.
- 2022: 6-year-old boy attacked at a Manapouri property by three pig hunting dogs and put into an induced coma.
- 2022: Child attacked by a dog in Glen Innes, Auckland. In hospital with moderate injuries.
"The simple question is, is it acceptable for adults and children to be mauled and killed by children's pets? And to me the simple answer is that it is not acceptable." - John Anderson (2009, father of Carolina Anderson).
Five tips to remember if a dog attacks
- Fold your arms and tuck them underneath your armpits
- Stand tall
- Look at the ground, never look the dog in the eye
- Keep the dog in front of you
- Don't run away or make any sudden movements
Links
- Carter, Jennifer & Swain, David (2008). Stories with Happy Endings: Preventing Pet Dog Attacks on Children https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/768/CA...
- Healey D. Fatal dog bites in New Zealand. N Z Med J. 2007 Aug 10;120(1259): https://assets-global.website-files.com/5e332a62c703f653182faf47/5e...
- Langley (1992) gathered data from the Health Statistics Services injury mortality data files during the period 1979 to 1988.
- Mair, J. & Moaveni, Z. The Burden of Dog bite Injuries in New Zealand: 2004-2014. in. NZ Association of Plastic Surgeons Annual Conference (2015).
- Marsh et al (2004) sought to update the earlier work by using a similar method to examine bites during the period 1989 to 2001.1 They similarly identified suitable cases through an examination of Electronic Mortality and Morbidity Files in the New Zealand Health Information Services (NZHIS) Database. They also catalogued an increasing incidence rate.