A Langley, B.C. family wants justice after they say their family pet was mauled to death by an allegedly off-leash dog whose owner fled in the aftermath.
It happened on Monday, as A.J. Tay and his wife and children were on an outing to Second Beach with their dogs, including their maltipoo named Sky.
The family had stopped near the concession, where Tay was taking a work call when he heard his wife and children screaming behind him.
When he turned around, he saw Sky clenched in the jaw of a much larger dog.
“I didn’t know if she was still alive or dead … so I didn’t know if I wanted to jump in to save her or just stand there and watch it all happen — but me being me, I jumped in,” he told Global News.
“I didn’t care if I was going to get bit or mauled, all I cared about was releasing her from the dog’s mouth. I just remember feeling and touching the other dog’s teeth, and my hands were just at it, just trying to pry and it just wouldn’t let up.”
Tay said another woman had the dog in a chokehold while several other bystanders were punching it trying to get it to let go of Sky.
He couldn’t recall how long the struggle lasted, but ultimately the dog let go.
“I was just tunnel vision and all I saw was the jaw, all I saw was Sky and his jaw,” he said. “It felt like forever.”
Sky was bleeding badly but still alive when she was released and Tay said he tried to compress her wounds as he called for help.
Eventually, a stranger offered him a ride to a nearby vet.
“Maybe about five minutes into the drive is when I saw her last heartbeat,” he said.
Witness Monika Dienes had just left the Second Beach pool when she heard the commotion, initially thinking it was a person being attacked.
She told Global News the attacking dog was beige in colour and weighed between 100 and 130 pounds.
“All I saw was a man holding a little white dog in his hand, and the dog’s head was like bent over, and I thought he was dead already,” she said.
More shocking, she said, was that the dog’s owner quickly fled the scene.
“Once everybody got separated … I saw the woman walking with a dog out from the crowd,” she said.
“My friend was basically running after her with a camera, and she was running with the dog.”
Dienes’ friend’s video shows a woman with a large dog walking quickly away as several people give chase, screaming her for to stop.
Another video posted to social media shows the woman walking quickly down a gravel path in Stanley Park and eventually scrambling into the bush with the large dog.
The City of Vancouver’s Animal Services department confirmed it was working with Vancouver police to track down the dog’s owner.
Tay said regardless of whether Sky had lived or died, the owner’s actions were “a coward’s move.”
“She kept running even after countless attempts from pedestrians and bystanders telling her to stop, telling her to turn herself in, telling her to just you know, communicate,” he said.
Tay said the attack traumatized his family. He believes the dog should be put down and its owner charged, noting that the park was packed with families and children at the time of the attack and that the dog could have lunged at anyone.
“I never want to see and hear it happen to another dog to another child to another human being.”
He said B.C. should look at stricter regulations around dangerous dogs, including considering breed bans or muzzle and leash requirements so attacks like the one that claimed the life of his family pet don’t happen to others.
“It can be prevented. I think we just need stricter regulations and rules in place,” he said.
Anyone with information that could help identify the dog and its owner is asked to contact Vancouver police at 604-717-3321.