A morning walk in the park with his Staffordshire terrier turned into a frightening ordeal for a Fife man after it was involved in a fight with another dog and he was bitten.
The dog responsible could be destroyed depending on the outcome of a vet’s report.
At Dunfermline Sheriff Court, Alana Warmsley, 38, of Urquhart Crescent, Dunfermline, admitted that on February 12 she was in a charge of a Staffordshire terrier which was dangerously out of control and bit Thomas Marshall on the leg to his injury.
Depute fiscal Kyrsten Buist said that Mr Marshall had taken his own Staffordshire terrier out for a walk near his home at around 8.30am and the dog was kept on its lead.
At around 9am Warmsley took her terrier out for a walk in a park near her home.
As the dogs began fighting, “the accused was 15 feet away and started screaming and shouting, trying to coax her dog off Mr Marshall’s dog.”
She went on: “The dogs continued to fight for five to 10 minutes. They had no success in separating them and Mr Marshall phoned the police. Eventually the dogs let go of each other.
“The accused’s dog then walked around the back of Mr Marshall, proceeded to bite him on the top of his left leg and he fell to the ground.
When police arrived they found Warmsley to be “shaken and upset about what had taken place”.
She added, “Mr Marshall was very upset and shaken.” He sustained a bruised upper leg, did not require immediate medical attention but was advised to see his GP to find out if he would require a tetanus jag.
Defence solicitor Lyndsey McCran said her client’s dog a two-year-old “relatively small” terrier, called Rocco.
She said her client did not see any other dogs in the area when she let it off the lead.
Sheriff Charles Macnair said to avoid the dog being destroyed he had to be satisfied that it was not dangerous.
He called for a vet’s report with sentencing on July 22.