One the dogs that mauled a 28-year-old London woman to death in Surrey on Thursday was an 11-stone Leonburger named Shiva. It has also been revealed that the dog appeared in a BBC2 programme about training misbehaving puppies when it was younger. The victim of the attack, whose name has not been made public, was walking a group of eight dogs along a bridle path near Caterham when the dogs, including the massive Leonburger, turned on her. It is unclear how or why the attack occurred, and it is very unusual for a group of dogs to all attack their walker at once unless they have all been exposed to some kind of stress, according to an expert, but witnesses who witnessed the tragedy were no doubt traumatised by the scenes. Dog psychologist Bruce Clanford told one newspaper that the attack was most likely the result of a ‘fundamental breakdown in communication between dogs and humans’. However, he admitted that in his 22 years of being a dog specialist, he has ‘never known them to turn on someone en masse like this’. “Dogs act that way when they are all very stressed,” he explained. If only one or two of them had been bothered, the entire pack would not have acted as they did.” Surrey Police Major Crime Unit is in charge of the investigation.
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