At first, she hoped it might just be severe scratches.

But when Brigitte Malana rescued Oscar from the water’s edge, it was clear the tiny Yorkie-poo had been savagely bitten by a German shepherd more than six times his size.

Moments earlier, Malana and her dad, Michael, were watching their dogs, Oscar, Stanley, another Yorkie-poo, and Molly, a Maltese shiatsu, happily play in the shallows on Sunday evening at the far end of McDonald Beach off-leash park with two other dogs.

But on the flip of a coin, Malana said one of the other dogs, a German shepherd called Chloe, appeared to single out Oscar before snapping and biting at him.

“We kind of froze for a second or two as we were worried we were going to get bitten,” said Malana, a second year SFU student and Burnett secondary grad.

“It probably was all over in a few seconds and the woman grabbed her dog by the collar and pulled it away.

“She kind of downplayed the whole thing and said it was just scratches; but I looked at Oscar and it didn’t seem to be scratches. There was sand all over the wounds that may have covered it up.”

As Malana was on the phone to the vet, she said the German shepherd was shaping up to do the same thing to her other Yorki-poo, Stanley. “She didn’t seem to have much control over the dog and we told her to get her dog on a leash,” added Malana, who volunteered for five years at the Richmond Youth Foundation and was president of the Animal Rescue and Care Club at high school.

“She just walked up ahead and didn’t even apologize.”

Almost $1,000 in vet bills have been run up for emergency surgery and subsequent cleaning of several wounds from an incident the City of Richmond’s bylaw department has categorized as a “mauling.’

Malana said the woman gave her name as Vanessa Calero and offered her phone number, arranging to meet Malana’s dad the next day at a Vancouver coffee shop.

“Since then, my dad, me, my mom and the City of Richmond bylaw officer have been unable to speak to her, despite calling her numerous times,” she said.

“We’ve texted her as well, but she’s not responding at all.”

Malana described the woman as in her mid-20s, of Hispanic descent, about five feet, four inches tall and of medium to heavy build.

The News called the woman on the number she gave Malana and a voicemail was left, asking for her version of events.

Later the same day, a man saying he knows “Vanessa” called the News claiming that Vanessa was too busy to come to the phone and added that the wounds on Oscar must have been inflicted by another dog in a subsequent attack as only “nips” had taken place when the dogs were playing.

He also claimed that he and Vanessa had already spoken to the City of Richmond bylaw officer who had dismissed the claim.

The city told the News that, in fact, neither of them had spoken to the officer.

The man further suggested that Malana and her father were “scamming” them into paying for a vet bill which looks set to top the $1,000 mark by the end of the week.

The City of Richmond confirmed Wednesday that its bylaw department was currently investigating the incident, but couldn’t release any more details at the moment.

Malana said it may be a little while before she’s confident enough to venture back to the beach with her dogs.

“Thankfully, my dog lived but I don’t want this to happen to another dog,” she said.

“I want as many people as possible to know what happened.

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