If One Of These* Is Planned For The Animal Kingdom...

...then I've got a contender!

Steve James, 57, who lives in a horse box on Third Avenue, in Burton, was watching the TV when he heard a knock.

Someone was at the door wanting to call an ambulance for a 27-year-old woman who had been walking along the nearby Trent and Mersey canal when she was mauled by a large dog, described as an American pit bull-type animal.

Someone who didn't have a mobile phone? Odd.

The passer-by said the woman had jumped into the water, and swam about 100 metres to get away from the dog before gripping on to the side of a narrowboat.

The owner of the boat then came out and pulled the woman on board - but the dog got on board, too.

Oh noes!

The owner managed to lure the dangerous dog inside the boat, and placed a weight in front of the door while the woman tried to escape. However the dog managed to break free, and again attacked the woman, who was on the towpath by the side of the canal.

It was then that Mr James arrived, and found the woman trying to keep the dog at arm's length. She had suffered severe lacerations to her legs, arms and ribs, so that the bones on her shin were exposed.

Yikes!

Mr James told the Burton Mail: "I grabbed a lead from my van, and I said to her on the count of three, let go of the dog. So when it got to three, I put the lead over his neck.

And pulled it tight, strangling the bloody thing?

"By this time, the ambulance had arrive. She was in there for a good hour before she went to hospital, because they had to clean all of the wounds.

"I managed to calm the dog down a bit, and walked it up to near where the ambulance was, and tied it up.

Oh.

I have always had big dogs myself so I knew what to do, but that dog was going to kill her, no doubt about it."

Well, why let it live then!? And....wait, whose dog was it, exactly?

A spokesman for Staffordshire Police said: "We were called to a canal boat by Waterside Court around 9.25pm on Friday, May 12 by colleagues from the ambulance service.

"A woman had been bitten by her dog. She was taken to the Royal Stoke University Hospital with arm and leg injuries and received treatment.The dog was seized for assessment of breed type. Inquiries are ongoing."

Another Darwin Award contender gets off lightly...

*unkillable adversaries