“I was shaking when I got home yesterday, I don’t know how I survived.” Terrorised Xolani resident Sindiwe Mata narrowly avoided being bitten by a ferocious pack of dogs near Royi Street last week.
“I was shaking when I got home yesterday, I don’t know how I survived.” Terrorised Xolani resident Sindiwe Mata narrowly avoided being bitten by a ferocious pack of dogs near Royi Street last week.
On her way home from a nearby school where she sells fruit to pupils during break times, she had to ward them off with stones before running away.
Mata said at first only one dog ran towards her, but before she knew it she was surrounded by an aggressive pack.
Fortunately the dogs started to fight among themselves once they had reached her, allowing her to slip away.
“There are about 12 dogs in that house and as soon as one of them came out the others surrounded me. I was so afraid I was still shaking when I got home yesterday,” Mata told Grocott’s Mail the day after her ordeal on Monday last week.
She believes the dogs all belong to a man living on Royi Street.
But Mata is not the only person to have a hair-raising encounter with dogs in the Tantyi area.
Last year a Xolani man barely survived after a vicious pack of dogs attacked him on two different occasions on Somngesi Street.
The man, who spoke of his brutal attack on condition of anonymity, told Grocott’s Mail that he was lucky to survive.
“I spent close to two weeks in Livingstone Hospital after I was bitten by those dogs,” he said of his second harrowing encounter.
On both occasions the man was walking down Somngesi Street at night when the dogs leapt from the shadows and started biting him until someone living nearby came to his rescue.
He still has scars from the dog bites all over his body, although he didn’t report the matter to police.
The problem seems to be spreading across Grahamstown East, but police spokesperson Captain Mali Govender said anyone bitten by dogs on a street or in a public place can report the incident to the SAPS.
If the victim can identify the owner of the dog, Govender said, the owner will be a suspect in the case.
“A case docket will be opened for investigation. The charge is keeping of a vicious dog.”
She said two cases of vicious dog attacks had been reported this year already.
One incident happened in I Street where the victim was bitten on the leg, although they didn’t know who the dogs belonged to.
In the second incident a 50-year-old woman went to see someone on Victoria Road when three dogs attacked her, biting her on the leg.
“She identified the dog as belonging to the person whom she went to see,” Govender said.
A 57-year-old woman was arrested on 22 January in connection with the case and received a R350 fine.
When asked about laws regarding dog ownership the SPCA referred questions to the Makana municipality.
Municipal spokesperson Mncedisi Boma said a house may only have two dogs and residents must approach the municipality if they wish to own a third dog.
"The municipality will grant permission to people who wish to own three dogs, but if people have more than two dogs we will just notify them that they should not replace the third dog when it dies," Boma said.
