The City of Surrey says an animal control officer is seriously hurt and has had surgery after being attacked by a dog in Cloverdale Tuesday afternoon.
“Yesterday afternoon we received a call of a dog at large in the Cloverdale area,” said Jas Rehal, Surrey’s manager of Public Safety Operations.
“An officer attended the area, the dog was found in one of the neighbours’ backyards, sitting underneath the porch there. Our officer approached the dog, and the dog subsequently attacked the officer, quite severely.”
Rehal said the woman suffered “quite a bit of damage” to her arms and hands and underwent surgery sometime overnight Tuesday, after the incident happened around 3:30 p.m. near 54th Avenue and 189th Street.
As of Thursday morning, she was still recovering in hospital after surgery related to a broken bone in her arm, according to Rehal.
“This dog was not a dog on record, so we had no issues with the dog before, no calls,” said Rehal.
“The dog owner did surrender the dog over to us, the dog was very vicious, very aggressive.”
The dog was put down Tuesday night, according to Rehal.
“The dog lived with the owner, got out somehow, and the owner ended up having some issues trying to manage the dog,” he noted.
Rehal said charges could be considered but that it’s too early to say.
“With any case like this, we’re going to assign it to another officer to examine it completely,” he added. “Nothing’s ruled out but we’re going to do our due diligence.”