Emma Dean, 25, told how she had to rescue her kids after the family dog Bruno ‘saw red’ and suddenly began attacking them – and ‘wasn’t stopping until someone was dead’
A mum who was forced to rescue her three young children after their family dog unleashed a vicious attack says the animal “wasn’t stopping until someone was dead.”
Emma Dean, 25, recalled how her mother-in-law’s dog Bruno “saw red” and attacked the youngsters, aged nine, seven and four, while they were staying at her house in Woodchurch, Merseyside, on Saturday February 15. Describing the attack, which happened around 11.40pm, Emma said Bruno became protective when her four-year-old son went over to sit on her lap. She said: “I have three kids, we had been sleeping at my mother-in-law’s [Joanne White] like we do on a weekend.
“My two eldest were asleep on the sofa bed in the living room. My four-year-old had just woken up and came over to me – I had been sitting on a gaming chair in the kitchen. The dog was very protective of me and when my son came over to sit on me he started growling at my son. I told him to move and the dog then went over to the man of the house [Gary Hall, Emma’s father-in-law] who told him off. He jumped up and nipped him on his hand. Gary said ‘he just nipped me’ and my mum-in-law came in and said ‘what?’
“Then the next minute the dog just attacked his leg. I quickly got my kids on the chair I was sitting on and wheeled them to the back porch to safety and shut the door. Once I had got them to safety I rang the police because then my mum-in-law was being attacked on the floor by the dog. My father-in-law had managed to get away from the dog and got upstairs. My mum-in-law jumped on top of the dog to try and stop it from attacking her. He was ragging her everywhere on the floor at that point and I rang the police.”
Police had said the children were playing “hide and seek” at the time of the attack, but Emma said this wasn’t the case. She recalled how she “felt helpless” at the time because she “couldn’t do anything” for Joanne. She said: “My main priority was my kids.” When Merseyside Police officers arrived and urged Joanne to let go of Bruno, she was “scared to” because she knew it would turn to attack her again.
She said: “She let go of the dog and he carried on going so the police tasered him. He was still trying to attack her so they tasered him again. He then ran out of the front door and we shut the door behind him. At that point more police officers had arrived through the back of the house and were talking to my kids.”
Emma told the Liverpool Echo her children were left “traumatised” in the aftermath of the attack: “The kids were asleep at the time, my four-year-old had woken up and I was just about to take him back to bed when it all happened. I’ve got bad mental health so seeing this has been traumatic, I thought my mum-in-law was going to die. It looked like she had been stabbed a billion times.”
Joanne, 44, and her partner Gary, 43, rescued Bruno eight weeks ago and were under the impression he was a staffy breed. Emma now suspects he could be a mixed breed and a post-mortem is due to be carried out to confirm his breed. She said: “He was a lovely dog but he just turned. We only had him for eight weeks, we got told it was a Staff.
“It was terrifying, if we weren’t staying and it had happened they wouldn’t have been able to phone the police. She’s been bitten over 60 times on her arms and face. My father-in-law has a chunk out of his leg and she (Joanne) is in a bad way in hospital. She needs surgery again today. Thankfully, my kids are fine, they have just been shaken up by it. My youngest thought his nan was dead. It was scary, it was upsetting as well because we did love the dog. We were told he was nice around kids.
“From our point of view he just got jealous of my son trying to get on my knee and when Gary told him off he saw red and thought ‘you’re not the boss of me.’ Then when we got the taste for blood he wasn’t stopping until someone was dead. He didn’t listen to me either, usually he listens to me but he didn’t he just looked at me and carried on. I’m just so glad I was there because they wouldn’t have been able to ring the police. It was my fast thinking that saved everyone.”
A Merseyside Police spokesperson said in an update: “One of the people injured has been released from hospital and one remains. As the dog was handed over to be humanely destroyed it was not typed.”
