And for one Shirley family a recent attack robbed them of their pet cat Roxy.
She was hunted down and viciously attacked and killed by two stray ‘staffy cross-type’ dogs early in the morning.
Her demise was witnessed on several home video surveillance cameras and her shattered remains were discovered later that same morning by neighbours further along a quiet cul-de-sac in Shirley.
Owner David Pringle, of Charlie Stanton Pl, said the first his family knew of Roxy’s death was a phone call from a neighbour.
“She was driving her kids to school when she spotted Roxy’s remains on a lawn at the end of the street.
“We thought she had been run over but when I went down and saw the state she was in I quickly recovered her and put her in a bag as I didn’t want any of the kids here to see the mess she was in,” Pringle said.
“They (the dogs) had ripped her head to shreds, so after I got her home I went back through the surveillance video and spotted the attack.
“The two dogs came from nearby Innes Rd and tracked her through some of our neighbours yards before they grabbed her from her favourite place lying under a bush out front of our house,” Pringle said.
“Then on another video I could see them kill her.
“It was a bit of a shock and my wife Shayle is still very upset about it all.”
He said he and many of his neighbours had installed video surveillance gear outside their houses after they were victims to a growing number of burglaries in their quiet little street.
“It’s got worse since the first lockdown last year, they got all my work tools in one robbery and another neighbour was up early one morning breastfeeding her baby when someone walked into her house,” the self employed electrician said.
Following the attack Pringle contacted the Christchurch City Council dog control team.
“We wanted them to do something about it as other pets in the area have also been killed by stray dogs, and we wanted to protect all of the small children here,” he said.
“Many of them play in the grassy area where the dogs came through.”
Sadly, in spite of the footage supplied by the Pringles, council staff were unable to identify the collarless dogs in the attack.
She added that currently there are 38,453 dogs registered in city area and they were aware of 4044 that are currently unregistered.
Neighbour Michelle Hall discovered Roxy and said she didn’t want her own children to see the remains.
“The fence the dogs came through isn’t properly closed off from Innes Rd so stray dogs and anyone can just walk through, it worries me and my partner as we have a great little street here.
“We will be asking the council to extend the fence to close off the access point,” she said.
