The 47-year-old needed 30 stitches to her face

A housing officer suffered facial injuries after she was attacked by a Staffordshire bull terrier last July in South Wales, for which she needed 30 stitches. The 47-year-old housing officer was bitten by a dog at the house of a tenant who she was visiting.

The victim said that despite having visited the house several times before, this time the tenant opened the door wide; “the dog just shot out,” she explained, “I didn’t really know at first that the dog had bitten me,” (BBC News, 2009).

Shock

“I felt my mouth and my lip was hanging – there was blood everywhere. It was a bit of a shock really,” the housing officer, who has recently returned to work after over a month away, explained.

The owner of the dog was banned from keeping dogs in the property for a year, but the dog which attacked the housing worker was not put down. The chief executive of Bron Afon Community Housing said “As the attack happened in the owner’s home, the police could not take any action, but that did not stop us going to court,” (BBC News, 2009).

“In this case the owner has had to give away not only their dog which bit our member of staff, but also two other dogs she owned,” he explained. The woman reported that despite being a dog lover, she had become more guarded when dogs were about; she hopes the scars of her stitches will fade eventually.