Dog bites boy, 4, on his eyelid

A FOUR-YEAR-OLD Dherynia boy has been rushed to hospital for emergency treatment after being bitten on the head by a neighbour=s dog.

Marios Soteriou will have to wear a patch over his eye for several weeks after doctors stitched a wound on his left lower eyelid after the Friday afternoon attack. He is expected to make a full recovery.

The American Staffordshire Terrier attacked Marios when he and two other children went to pet it at a neighbour=s house.

Police are treating the incident as an accident, and the dog is still with its owner.

Police say they will seek the advice of the Veterinary Department on whether to treat the dog as a dangerous animal and have it put it down.

Legislation on dog licensing has been submitted to the House Interior Committee which, if passed, would allow the Veterinary Department to keep tabs on potentially threatening animals on the island. After months of delay caused by confusion over which committee would review the legislation B Interior or Agriculture B it is still uncertain when it will pass or how it will be enforced.

In Germany a six-year-old boy was killed on Monday when he was attacked by two dogs, a pitbull and a Staffordshire Terrier, the same breed that injured Marios Soteriou on Friday.

Cyprus currently bans the importation or keeping of four breeds of dog, including the pitbull, although the Staffordshire Terrier is not among them.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.