A PENSIONER suffered ten bites to her arm and a bite to her ear by a dog during a brave struggle to save her own pet from being attacked.

Widow Valerie Wade, 74, was out walking her Yorkshire terrier called Whisker in Foxwood, York, when the larger dog bounded over a garden fence and charged towards her.

She scooped up Whisker and held him high above her head as the snarling animal, which she believes is a Staffordshire bull terrier, attacked her on the pavement in Doherty Walk at 6.30pm last Thursday.

The retired carer held grimly on to her dog, which is her only companion, as the bigger dog sank its jaws into her right arm ten times and took a bite out of her right ear.

She said: “I have never been so terrified and petrified in my life. Blood was pouring down my face and neck from my ear and there was blood down my arm from the bites.”

Mrs Wade, of Saddlebrook Court sheltered housing scheme, said she thought she might eventually have been brought to the ground and even killed but for two ‘guardian angels’ who came to her rescue.

Local resident Alison Giles heard her cries for help and came out, accompanied by her elderly mother who was visiting.

Alison spoke to the dog, which she had known since a puppy and is believed to belong to a neighbour, to calm it down.

While Alison took care of Whisker, her mother drove Mrs Wade to York Hospital where she spent more than three hours in surgery. Mrs Wade said she had been told she would need reconstruction work on her ear. “The consultant also said that now the dog has tasted blood it will want more,” she said.

“My conscience will not allow me to keep quiet. I am so worried because there are so many children who play and walk their dogs there. I would not wish this on anyone else.”

Mrs Wade said that when she first passed the dog, it was in a garden and she ignored it. But when she reached the corner and was about to retrace her steps home, it attacked.

“I had just turned around and it had leaped over the fence and was charging like crazy towards me,” she said.

“I grabbed my Yorkie and held him up as high as I could. It attacked me because it could not get at the dog. I was screaming at the top of my voice.”

She said she was discharged early from hospital because the drip she had been put on broke down, but she returned yesterday to have her wounds redressed.

She said her right arm was in a sling, which made life very hard, as she could not even pick up her change off a shop counter without help.

Inspector John Naughton, of North Yorkshire Police, said a 47-year-old man had been reported for the offence of having a dog dangerously out of control in a public place. He appealed for any witnesses to the attack to contact police on 101.