A HORRIFIED dad told yesterday how a killing machine dog ripped his schoolgirl daughter's face apart.
Ten-year-old Toni Clannachan needed more than 100 stitches and was scarred for life after the attack by the vicious Akita fighting dog.
It came just days after another 10-year-old Scots girl was mauled by two rottweilers.
Last night, as Toni lay in hospital, dad James Dixon said: These dogs shouldn't be with families or around kids. They are killing machines.
Toni was playing in a friend's garden when the family Akita, called Kruger, savaged her.
The owner of the Akita, professional dog groomer Gaynor McCabe, has been involved in a previous dog attack.
Her own son Gabriel - whom Toni was playing with on Tuesday when the Akita attacked - lost part of an ear when her Staffordshire bull terrier went for him.
McCabe was not charged yesterday but Kruger was taken to a pound by police and a court may decide its fate later.
Toni had four hours of surgery at Crosshouse Hospital, two miles from her home in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire.
Her cheek had a large hole in it and her top lip was left hanging down her face after the dog took vicious bites at her head.
She has been too scared to look at her wounds and nurses have covered mirrors to shield her from the shock.
Dad James, who agreed to pictures of her injuries being published to show the horror of the attack, said: I just don't see the point in having these dogs. They are bred for fighting and killing, so how can anyone justify having them around kids?
If the dog had bit her an inch or so lower it would have severed an artery in her neck and I really think she would be dead.
James was told of the attack as he headed home from McCabe's house to tell Toni's mum Carol, 39, where their daughter was.
He said: The kids had been playing with ferrets out the back and the dog was there, too. After I left the house, I had gone only 50 or 100 yards when a kid ran after me, shouting that Toni had been bitten.
She had a five-inch hole in her face and half her lip was hanging off. She wasn't crying, she was in total shock. She said the dog had shook her around.
Toni, who loves dogs and has a terrier called Butch, has told her parents she hopes Kruger is put down. James said: I think she is terrified she will see it again.
The police say it's more complicated because the attack took place in an enclosed environment where the dog lives, which isn't covered by the dangerous dogs legislation.
In 1999, Gabriel McCabe, then only eight months old, was badly bitten on the head after a Staffordshire bull terrier suddenly turned on him.
McCabe refused to comment last night. Akitas originally come from Japan. They are large, powerful dogs that were bred for fighting.
The Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 extends the criminal liability of an owner to all places, rather than just public ones.
But the legislation does not come into effect until February.
On Sunday, 10-year-old Rhianna Kidd was mauled by two rottweilers while riding her bicycle in Dundee.
She was treated for a fractured jaw and needed plastic surgery. The dogs were put down and a 33-year-old woman was charged under the Dangerous Dogs Act.
