Steven Yorke revealed the terrifying ordeal he and his dog faced when an off-lead pet attacked his beloved cavapoo on a woodland walk – leaving it fighting for its life
A “devastated” dog owner revealed the shocking three words he heard before his beloved cavapoo was savaged by an off-lead dog. Steven Yorke, 37, said his pet dog Rocky was left fighting for its life and nearly died while on a walk in a woodland area near Cardiff, Wales.
Rocky, who was on a lead, sustained “extreme” internal injuries from the unprovoked attack in Tyn y Coed Wood in Rhondda Cynon Taf. Steven revealed the dog appeared from out of nowhere and its owner eventually showed up afterwards and said “he won’t hurt” before pouncing on the cavapoo.
Steven recalled the terrifying day, and said: “I was walking along with Rocky, who was on lead, and then a dog appeared and ran towards us. At first the owner wasn’t even in sight so I was a little bit concerned especially because it looked quite lean and quite powerful.
“The owner appeared and shouted over, ‘oh, don’t worry he won’t hurt’ but then moments later he just started going for Rocky.” Steven said the other dog owner ran over to grab his dog back but Rocky was left shaken by the “horrendous” ordeal, according to WalesOnline.
He added: “Rocky was screaming but there was no sign on him that he’d been hurt, so I just thought he was really scared by the whole thing. The man apologised and I was shaken up and wanted to get away.”
Steven said he started his 20 minute walk back to his car with Rocky and at some point had to pick up the dog because he was “scared” and “seemed that he didn’t want to walk any further”.
The owner noticed his beloved Rocky was acting differently when they got home and eventually realised his cavapoo was left physically hurt by the random attack. Steven said: “He just was just laying on the floor which worried me as he’s normally really energetic.
“At that point I was thinking maybe I should take him to the vet to get him checked over and that’s when I noticed that he would squeal when trying to go down a step, so I knew he was in pain.”
Rocky’s situation started to turn into a nightmare after “lots of blood came out” when Rocky went to the toilet. Steven said: “It was really shocking and I told the receptionist what happened so they rushed him away and gave him an ultrasound and that’s when they could see he was bleeding internally and there was a lot of blood inside him.
“They said he’d need to have emergency surgery straight away to stop the bleeding.” However, midway through the surgery, Steven had a call from the vet to say that Rocky might not survive and gave the dog owner three options.
Steven said: “One was to remove his kidney, another way for them to pack his insides and send him to Bristol where there are specialists and he’d be more likely to survive, and the third option was to put him down. I just wanted them to do whatever they thought was most likely to help him survive.”
The vet then received an update about Rocky’s condition and said that his blood pressure was too low for him to be transferred, meaning removing the kidney was now the only option. Steven said: “I thought there was no way he was going to survive. It sounded like the best thing was for him to be seen by the specialists and now that was off the table. It was just horrible waiting to hear back.”
Rocky survived the surgery and the owner said: “The amount of damage that was done internally was extreme, but luckily no major organs were damaged. His kidney was destroyed but if that had been his liver or any major artery, he wouldn’t have survived. If the dog had longer to keep attacking, there’s no way he would have survived that.”
He remained at the veterinary hospital until Wednesday and is going back for daily check-ups. The horror ordeal has cost Steven £6,500 so far in vet bills, which he is hoping to get pet insurance to cover. This weekend, Steven is planning on going back to the Tyn y Coed Wood without Rocky so he can put flyers up to make people aware of what happened.
He said: “I just really want to find the owner so he is aware of the damage that his dog did so that he starts putting it on the lead every time he goes out. He reacted quickly and did his best to separate them. If he hadn’t have done that, I think Rocky would probably be dead.”
