A West Vancouver senior is recovering after being attacked and bitten by an off-leash dog.

Gary Cuthbert was on his way home from his routine walk on the trails beneath the Lions Gate Bridge Friday afternoon when the attack happened. A woman pulled up in a grey SUV just after 2:30 p.m. and let her two brown dogs out. The one that wasn’t leashed lunged at the 82-year-old.

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“She was maybe 30 feet from me. All of a sudden, the dog leaped at me, knocked me down. I put my arm up at my neck to protect myself,” Cuthbert said. “The dog then proceeded to chew on my neck, my right arm, I’ve lost a digit on my right hand… It’s a lovely looking mess, I can assure you.”

Eventually, the dog was called off but Cuthbert was left bleeding. He went home and called 911. By the time police arrived, the woman and her dogs were gone. Cuthbert said he is frustrated that no one else saw what happened.

“I don’t know who she is or anything about her. I’ve only seen her once before. She seemed quite nice,” Cuthbert said.

Since the attack, he’s been into the hospital every day for treatment.

Cuthbert said he was feeling traumatized by the event, but he’s relied on his healthy sense of humour to make himself and others around him happy in the wake of the attack.

“I’m getting along fine,” he said.

What’s bothering him more is that he’s unable to take his daily walks while he recovers.

“That’s what hurts,” he said.

West Vancouver police are now trying to find the dog’s owner. Police describe the woman as white, in her 30s with dark hair and a slim build. The Squamish Nation’s animal control officer is also on the lookout for the dogs.

“We are certainly hoping we can at least identify the female and determine what, if any, action is warranted. We did a lot of patrols and are continuing to check into things. There is some surveillance in the area associated with the railway and other facilities,” said Const. Jeff Palmer, West Vancouver police spokesman. “At this point we don’t have any conclusive information where the dog might be from. Anybody who might have information that could assist in this – most importantly the owner of the actual dog – would be helpful if they were in contact with us.”

Cuthbert said he has no intentions of suing the woman, calling the notion ‘ridiculous.” And despite being the one sporting the bandages and lost fingertip, Cuthbert said he feels sorry for the dog’s owner.

“She’s going to live with this for the rest of her life,” he said.

But, he added, the dog must be put down.

“No question about it. When a dog attacks a human, that dog has got to go. You can’t trust it,” he said, noting the woman who was killed by her own boxer/pit bull-cross last month outside Calgary.