THE owner of a dog that may be put down after attacking an elderly Westie in Park South earlier this month has spoken out about the incident.

Liz Johns, of Queen’s Drive, was horrified when her four-year-old Japanese Akita Gigsy attacked 11-year-old Lucy near Henley Road, at around 10.30am on July 10.

She said: “I’m devastated because my dog’s done this. He should have had a muzzle, I know that I’m the guilty one and I am the perpetrator. I know what he’s done is wrong, and it’s me, not him.”

Liz, a former project worker for supported housing association Home Group, was walking Gigsy near her home when Sharon Fisher and her family pet walked past on a narrow path.

The 49-year-old, who has a stress-related illness said: “I never walk him on the same pavement as other people and other dogs because he’s too iffy, and he is nasty with other dogs. He had a gastric stomach and he’d just been to the toilet, which I was clearing up when it happened. I didn’t notice the other person on our side of the road walking towards us.

“Gigsy was not loose. The little one stopped to sniff the wheel of a car on the road near to us and that’s when my dog bit him.

“I’m so horrified and it is horrible. The worst of it is he just holds on, and he’s panicking too, and I’m smacking him on the head to try and make him let go. It was me who saved her dog.”

Once Gigsy had let Lucy go, Liz said Sharon quickly left the scene before she had a chance to speak with her.

She said: “I went home and called my vets to see if the little mite had been taken in. I called the police to make sure it was logged on the computers in case it escalated.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t even afford to pay the vet.”

Gigsy had been involved in two other incidents more than a year ago but Liz said on both occasions he was the one who was attacked.

She said: “What worsened it for me is after the first attack I started receiving threats from other walkers, and one of them said they were planning to get a gun and shoot my dog.

“I can understand their anger, but they are as bad as the dog for threatening something like that. That really frightened me.

“I’ve met people on walks and they are really surprised how friendly he is.

“He used to be really sociable, but he was trained badly by a shared partner who wanted a macho dog, who held him on a lead and made him anxious.”

Today, Liz will meet the council to hear its decision about Gigsy’s future.

She said: “The council are taking it very seriously. They will either put an action plan in place or they will decide to destroy my dog.”

Since the event, Gigsy, who is kept on a lead at all times, has been wearing a muzzle.

Liz said: “If he smells something and it panics him he gets iffy. Now he has a cloth muzzle so only his little nose sticks out and he can breathe and pant and drink but he can’t do any damage.”