Woman mauled by dog loses one arm but surgeons save the other

Dec 19 2007

A woman's life and her arm have been saved by surgeons following a vicious mauling by a rottweiler.

Kennel worker Mandy Peynado's arms were savaged as she tried to protect her throat when the dog attacked her at Knightwood Kennels near Salisbury, Wiltshire.

Mandy Peynado, an experienced dog handler was exercising the large male rottweiler when it turned on her, grabbed her coat, pulled her to the ground and dragged her up and down the exercise yard at the kennels.

The dog bit her 100 times and she was found in a pool of blood.

Surgeons successfully battled to save her right arm after her left arm was amputated.

Ms Peynado's family say she is in good spirits are good and the doctors saying she is a miracle.

Ms Peynado, 47, faces more surgery next week and surgeons are unsure whether they can save what remains of the top of her left arm.

The surgeons took muscle from her back and used it as a skin graft to preserve her right arm.

Ms Peynado had worked at the kennels for three years before the attack; the dog which attacked her was a stray picked up by New Forest District Council six weeks earlier and had not shown any signs of aggression.

The kennel's owner Judith Wykeham says there apparently is a history with the owner who abandoned the dog which the police are investigating.

She says the dog would have been treated differently had they known it had a troubled background.

Mandy Peynado apparently still wants to work with dogs.

The dog has since been destroyed by Wiltshire Police.