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Nobody out walking that day in this verdant corner of England will forget the woman’s screams.
Punchy cries at first, giving way to something more prolonged, a high-pitched screech rising above the muffled roar of the M25 in the valley below. Then, quite suddenly, whimpering and finally silence.
That was appalling enough. Unerasable. ‘It will live with me for ever,’ said an elderly man who came to lay flowers yesterday in tribute to the as-yet unidentified victim – mauled to death by the dogs she was hired to walk.
Yesterday, as a picture emerged of one of the dogs being walked by the woman – a large Leonberger called Shiva – exactly how the horror unfolded remains unclear.
EXCLUSIVE FIRST PICTURE: Shiva, an 11st Leonburger, was among eight hounds with the victim. Shiva’s owner says her dog is now ‘missing’
PROBE: A police officer at the scene of the tragedy, where a forensics tent had been erected
The man still doesn’t know how close he was to the scene of Thursday’s attack, but he agreed with his friend that this burst of violence – freakish and discordant – must have been like something from a horror film.
Few witnessed what happened. A 60-year-old woman on horseback saw something of it as she approached the brow of a hill at 2.30pm on the North Downs Way – a bridle path at Gravelly Hill, near Caterham, Surrey – flanked by a grass bank and bushes and trees. Surrounded by dogs pulling frenziedly at her limbs, a blonde woman wearing a beige jacket, who we would later learn was 28, was on the ground, sitting but never quite managing to stand up. She never did.
‘When we saw her she was about 50ft away,’ the horsewoman told The Mail on Sunday.
‘She was swamped by at least four medium-sized dogs, maybe more, attacking her, pulling her at arms and sides and she was screaming and shouting.’ But perhaps surprisingly, there was no barking, a chilling detail that adds another layer to the horror.
PAYING RESPECTS: A woman lays flowers yesterday where the dog mauling took place
Among the dogs being walked was a couple of dachshunds, (left) a cockapoo (right) – the nation’s favourite breed during lockdown – a collie and Shiva (File photos)
The horsewoman, who believes she was the last person to see the victim alive, added: ‘The dogs must have been on the lead because they were in such close proximity.
‘I don’t know why they kicked off the way they did. Maybe a couple were fighting with each other and she tried to intervene, and she got in the way and they saw red and just kept going.
‘When she saw us she shouted: “Turn back, turn back!”.
‘I cannot see how she could have got up. Once you’re down and the dogs are attacking like that, how you could get up? I imagine that is where the police found her.’
How could such a thing happen? By all accounts, this wasn’t the work of so-called devil dogs.
Moreover, this was, in theory at least, a largely benign bunch of hounds. Among them a couple of dachshunds, a cockapoo – the nation’s favourite breed during lockdown – a collie and Shiva.
When much younger, Shiva appeared in a BBC2 programme about unruly puppies who chew through furniture.
True, the five-year-old Leonberger is now huge – about 11st – but these dogs are not normally aggressive.
Another woman was hospitalised and eight dogs were recovered at the scene after police responded following the attack at 2.45pm Thursday
Police were called, arriving half an hour after the initial attack in several cars carrying armed officers and paramedics
Following the attack on Thursday, Shiva’s owner Delia Lewis, a psychic and life coach, posted online that her dog was ‘missing’.
Police officers rounded up any loose dogs following the tragedy. All are now in the hands of the police, their fate unknown, as they are assessed by canine specialists.
‘I don’t know what is going to happen,’ said one of the owners last night. ‘I know the victim who died – she’s a friend – so I don’t want to say more.’ Yesterday the beauty spot was back to normal.
A black forensic police tent, marking the scene of the tragedy, was removed and the cordon was lifted in the morning, allowing sombre local residents to come and lay flowers at the scene. Dog walkers nodded greetings to each other. Some stopped to chat. There were no outward signs of Thursday’s horror save a discarded sky-blue glove, worn by one of the paramedics and left beside the bridleway.
Since the attack there have been questions over why she was walking so many dogs. Eight is simply too great a number to control, say many experts.
Others note that dog walkers can typically charge between £15 and £20 an hour per dog.
One frequent visitor to the beauty spot often saw the victim and said she often struggled to control the dogs in her care.
Dog bites are on the increase. In the past 20 years hospital admissions for dog-related injuries doubled in England to about 8,000 per year. It is a problem made worse by the impulse-buying of dogs during Covid.
Police at the remote spot Gravelly Hill in Caterham, Surrey, where a 28-year-old woman was mauled to death by the dogs she was walking
Horrified sources have recalled the sheer terror of the dog walker, 28, who tried to keep onlookers away even as the animals – who were ‘like a pack of wolves’ – attacked her in the remote beauty spot Gravelly Hill in Caterham at 2.45pm on Thursday
It is estimated that the dog population has increased 44 per cent from nine million to 13 million since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. Animal experts have warned that the boom of pandemic puppy buying has led to a generation of pets poorly socialised and trained, less accustomed to being around other dogs. Yet it is inescapably the case that in the midst of Thursday’s outrage, when she faced unimaginable horror, the victim managed to warn the horsewoman to effectively save herself and go back. A selfless act by any standards.
‘Everything was so frantic,’ said the horsewoman. ‘It was just horrible. Two of the dogs, which were obviously loose, came running towards us. One looked like a very well-groomed cream cockapoo and the other was black.
‘My horse just turned round and bolted down the bank. I was leaning forward and eventually I fell off near a gentleman walking his dog.
‘My ribs and my hip on my right sight are very bruised. We were going to trot up the hill as we thought she [the victim] may have got up and walked on. But as we started walking, you could hear her screaming, and I said, “We’re not going up there with horses, you don’t know what will happen”.’
Police at the remote spot Gravelly Hill in Caterham, Surrey, where a 28-year-old woman was mauled to death by the dogs she was walking
Pictured: Police at the scene of the tragedy during the initial investigation
She later learned that another woman – walking a small dog on a lead – was attacked by one of the victim’s dogs. Presumably she was alarmed by the pack of animals before her, because she picked up her own. ‘One of the dogs jumped up at her,’ said a source.
‘It bit through her jacket and she was badly wounded all down her side. She was crying and said: “I’ve just been attacked by a dog.” She lifted her jacket to show her wounds and then she went to hospital.’ The furore over the attack is unlikely to abate any time soon. There were calls yesterday for new nationwide guideline on rules for dog walkers to help prevent further fatal attacks.
Shaun Hesmondhalgh, one of the country’s leading dangerous dog experts, has warned that there are no entry requirements for dog walkers. He said the Government should look at limiting the number of dogs one dog walker can take out.
Currently, each council is responsible for deciding rules around dog walking; including how many dogs one person can handle at once. In the Surrey district of Tandridge, where this incident took place, walkers must apply for an annual licence costing £156.50 and are allowed to walk only six dogs at once.
But Mr Hesmondhalgh said: ‘This is a tragic incident, for which the facts are yet to be established.
‘I can only imagine what the family are going through right now and my thoughts and feelings are with them.
‘However, it is now time for the Government to look at introducing a nationwide framework for dog walkers and not leave individual councils to decide their own rules.’
Only stressed out animals would attack in such a way, says dog psychologist – after a woman was mauled to death in Surrey by ‘multiple dogs’
By Bruce Clanford, Dog Psychologist, for The Mail on Sunday
For seven dogs to turn on one woman is shocking and, in my experience, almost unprecedented. We can’t feel anything but enormous sympathy for her family.
While none of us can know exactly what took place on Thursday, there is no doubt in my mind that it was entirely preventable – and was allowed to happen because of a fundamental breakdown in communication between dogs and humans.
I know this because I’ve been an animal behavioural specialist for 22 years. And in all my time working with dogs, some with a range of problem behaviours, I’ve never known them to turn on someone en masse like this.
Dogs act that way if they are all feeling very stressed. If only one or two of them had been troubled, the whole pack would not have behaved as they appear to have done.
For seven dogs to turn on one woman is shocking and, in my experience, almost unprecedented. We can’t feel anything but enormous sympathy for her family. Pictured: File photo of a dachshund which was a breed of dog walked by the victim
While none of us can know exactly what took place on Thursday, there is no doubt in my mind that it was entirely preventable – and was allowed to happen because of a fundamental breakdown in communication between dogs and humans. Pictured: Police at the remote spot Gravelly Hill in Surrey, where a woman was mauled to death by the dogs she was walking
When you take dogs out as a group, you need to know how they behave individually, how they respond to each other, and what their triggers are. Put together a load of dogs, which may not have met each other before, and they become anxious.
Even the process of getting them there, perhaps bundled together in a van, is a stressful experience for them.
If the dog walker was also a stranger to them – and we don’t know if this was the case – it would only have exacerbated their nervousness.
The fact they were on leads, as reported, would have compounded that further.
Their ‘fight or flight’ response would have been activated, putting them naturally on edge and alert to danger.
What happens next is an automatic response which sees the dogs looking for a way to lash out. This isn’t because they want to harm someone or something; it’s a way of communicating that they want the situation they are in to stop.
One of the dogs found a target: a second woman, walking with her own dog. It’s possible the dog tried to attack her animal and, when she intervened, snapped at her instead.
Dogs act that way if they are all feeling very stressed. If only one or two of them had been troubled, the whole pack would not have behaved as they appear to have done. Pictured: A police officer at the scene of the tragedy, where a forensics tent had been erected
We don’t know how the first dog walker responded. But by then it was too late for her to regain control. The over-stressed dog, as she tried to control it, would have wanted to lash out further. This is it saying: ‘Get off me, I’m really stressed, get away.’
That reaction, to attack her, would have been instantaneous. But it’s the fact that all of the dogs joined in which is most telling.
This wasn’t one dog going rogue and being copied by the pack. Dogs don’t do that.
They only act together – with pack mentality – if they’re all feeling the same way. I suspect they were all stressed and anxious. And that must have started well before the first dog lashed out.
It’s sad that the dogs will get the blame for something that was a failure of human responsibility. And it’s why we need all dog walkers to undertake basic qualifications, and why we must have a national register of professionals, as a matter of urgency.
Bruce Clanford is The UK Dog Whisperer, an animal behaviour specialist.
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