Bloody goanna attack has resident fearing for others' safety

[Flaviemys purvisi]

30th Jan 2019
by MATTHEW NEWTON


BETTER DAYS: Thorn, bloodied after his run-in with a goanna at Mount Kynoch. PICTURE: Contributed


THE way Thorn is acting, you wouldn't know how close he came to dying after a bloody tussle with a goanna last week, his owner Natasha Price reckons.

Mrs Price was at home in Mount Kynoch last Monday when she heard some rustling in the long grass of the vacant block next door, but didn't think anything of it.

About an hour later she heard "the most horrible noise I'd ever heard" before seeing a goanna that she estimated to be about 180cm long , chasing her staffy Thorn.

The goanna latched onto the unfortunate pooch and began biting and scratching him with its claws, while Mrs Price's other dog Athena struggled to pull the reptile off.

"I've run over, I ended up smacking it with a poop scooper and holdings its head down with the scooper so (the dogs) could get away," Mrs Price said.

"By the time I pulled them away, he's bleeding everywhere. There were cuts on his head but mostly from his leg where he had been ripped apart.

"This was totally unprovoked. Both the dogs were lying down when it came into the yard. It came over the fence and went straight for them."

Mrs Price said she was afraid of what could have happened if the goanna decided to go after a child.

"Right next door there are two small children and another house that backs onto the abandoned property. It was pure luck it came into my yard and not their yard," she said.

"If it had have been a child... there's no way a kid would have survived being bitten the way he was."

In another incident last week on South Stradbroke Island, it took two people to wrestle a goanna off an eight-year-old girl after it attacked.

 

[Imported_tuatara]

first snakes and crocs, now goannas huh?

 

[nuttylizardguy]

Well had they kept the dog in it's own yard this would likely have not have happened.

Nuff said.

 

[Imported_tuatara]

Well had they kept the dog in it's own yard this would likely have not have happened.

Nuff said.

View attachment 326415
"This was totally unprovoked. Both the dogs were lying down when it came into the yard. It came over the fence and went straight for them."

[doublepost=1548943397,1548943239][/doublepost]i definitely don't think a goanna would try and kill two medium sized dogs unprovoked though, the lady is obviously assuming that her dogs are perfect when it's more likely that the goanna came into the yard and the dogs provoked it.

 

[Flaviemys purvisi]

Well had they kept the dog in it's own yard this would likely have not have happened.

Nuff said.

Did you actually read the article... her dogs were in her own yard... the goanna scaled her fence and attacked her dogs after chasing them...

 

[nuttylizardguy]

[doublepost=1548943397,1548943239][/doublepost]i definitely don't think a goanna would try and kill two medium sized dogs unprovoked though, the lady is obviously assuming that her dogs are perfect when it's more likely that the goanna came into the yard and the dogs provoked it.

I agree , she never said see saw the start of the confrontation , I'm betting the goanna is a regular visitor (to raid the dog's water and food dishes) and one or both of the (pit bull "staffy") dogs attacked first cornering it and they came off second best when the goanna defended itself.