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A four-year-old girl on holiday with her parents in Turkey was mauled by a large stray dog while they enjoyed a day at the beach.

Catherine Craig, 41, her husband Patrick, 48, and four-year-old Naomi jetted to Ephesus in Turkey on a £2,000 TUI Family Life resort break.

The family-of-three headed down to the private beach opposite their hotel when suddenly the large mutt came up to them.

It lunged at Naomi and clamped its teeth on her shoulder leaving her with an inch and a half inch gash.

(Image: Triangle News) (Image: Triangle News)

Horrified Catherine went to pull the mongrel off her daughter and she was also bitten.

She said: "A large dog approached us and at first I thought it belonged to somebody on the beach.

"But then it got really close to us and it had a gash over its eye.

"Naomi turned round and it clamped onto her shoulder blade."

Clothing manufacturer Catherine said: "I grabbed the dog and it bit me on the front of my shoulder.

"Naomi was inconsolable, it was horrible.

(Image: Triangle News)

"But the worst thing was the worry afterwards about what could have happened, whether the cut was infected."

The family had to go to three different hospitals due to the language barrier before Naomi's cut was finally treated.

They had to return to the hospital for the cut to be checked twice more during their week's stay.

Catherine, of Gilberdyke, East Riding, said: "It ruined our holiday for us. That was the only trip we had booked this year.

"Every day was a write-off with trips back and forth to the hospital.

"We got home and felt like we hadn't had a holiday."

(Image: Triangle News)

The mother-of-one was also left terrified that they would have contracted rabies from the mutt.

Catherine added: "I went to my GP and just cried. I was saying, 'I don't know what I'm supposed to do, am I supposed to just hope that we don't get rabies and die?'"

Catherine thinks TUI should have done more to ensure that stray and potentially dangerous animals weren't allowed onto the beach.

(Image: Triangle News)

She said: "On a beach that they're saying is private, with security cameras and staff monitoring it, I think that they have a duty of care to look out for these things.

"If you know there are stray dogs around then you should be looking out to make sure they don't get onto the beach."

A spokesman from TUI said: "We are sorry to hear of this incident.

"Our teams in resort work hard to keep our customers safe on their holidays, but we cannot guarantee that the local dogs will stay off the beaches.

(Image: Triangle News) (Image: Triangle News)

"However, we understand the service Naomi and her family received following the incident did not match the high standards we aim for, and we will therefore be in touch with the customers to apologise and offer a gesture of goodwill.

"The safety and wellbeing of our customers is always our highest priority."