IT WAS MY ARM OR MY CHILD'S LIFE

When the family dog suddenly attacked her son, all this Joburg mom could think about was saving her boy – and she was mauled so badly her arm had to be amputated

-  ROSS MICHAELS

SHE greets us with a broad smile and offers her left hand for us to shake, which she follows with an apology. She can’t greet with her right hand anymore – it’s been amputated after one of their pet dogs attacked her son and she in- intervened to protect her child.

“He literally ate my arm,” Linda Venter tells us. “Crushed it. There was nothing left.”

Linda (37) and her husband, Marius, adopted the dog, Zeus, three years ago when he was three weeks old.

The Great Dane-bull terrier cross quickly crept into their hearts and the hearts of their sons, Brenden (14), Brayden (11) and Brian (4).

“He was an inside dog,” Marius says. “Our other dogs – the little ones, the Jack Russells – were outside dogs. They make a mess but our big dog had manners.”

Linda nods in agreement. “Sometimes I think Zeus got more love than our children,” she says. “He had a royal life. He was so sweet.”

He was a good boy, Brenden says. “We never really had to be strict with him. If you talked to him sternly, he’d wet himself because he’d be so scared.”

Everything changed on 29 August. Linda, Brayden and Linda’s aunt Magda, who also lives with the family, were outside at their Benoni home.

Linda was hanging up the laundry, Brayden was playing with a rugby ball and Magda was watching him. Without warning Zeus growled at Brayden and launched himself at the boy.

Linda’s face goes red as she tells us what she saw. “It was like a snap,” she says, clicking her fingers. “It wasn’t that he just growled, he went for him! I saw Zeus biting him. He bit Brayden on the back of the head, on his face, then he went for his buttocks.”