The force was such that her finger tore off. Her body was pinned against the fence. She still could not see the dog. Thalia Standley, 8, with her dogs, Simba and Shadow. Credit:Marina Neil She lay there helplessly while her best friend, Layne Kidd, 7, ran for help. "She sat there for two or three minutes by herself, pinned against the fence, while the dog ate her arm," her father, Randall Standley, said. Mr Standley and his wife Sally, Thalia's mother, have only recently asked their daughter to tell them in detail what happened on the Saturday afternoon in August that changed all of their lives.

Thalia, her sister Jessica, 13, and brother Nathan, 11, had gone to visit a family friend around the corner from their home in the Lake Macquarie suburb of Valentine. Thalia Standley with her friend Layne Kidd (right). Credit:Marina Neil Darren and Kathie Kidd have children the same age as the Standley family and they play together in the cul-de-sac where they live, or swim in their backyard pool. It was the middle of the afternoon. Thalia sat on a retaining wall, her back to a neighbouring fence, hands resting behind her, waiting for her two friends and Jessica to catch up to her. Thalia Standley with her parents, Randall and Sally Standley. Credit:Marina Neil

She did not know there were dogs in the backyard, and, despite media reports at the time suggesting otherwise, did not stick her hand through the gap. Then the attack began. "She said that she had to keep quiet and still, because then the dog would sit on her arm and be calm," Mr Standley said. "It just sat there and chewed. "If she moved her arm, it grabbed it and ripped and tore and pulled.

"At first she screamed, but she said she had to stop because that was so much worse than when it went back to eating her hand." Thalia's assessment of the attack is just as chilling: "If that fence wasn't there, I wouldn't be here," she said. Layne found her father first, telling him that Thalia had caught her hand on something. "I expected to see her hand caught in the car door," Mr Kidd said. When he eventually saw Thalia lying prone against the fence and the retaining wall, he thought she had fallen, perhaps breaking her wrist, and could not get up.

"She was sobbing, and I went to pick her up and something sort of pulled her back," he said. "I thought, 'What the bloody hell is that?' I couldn't hear growling or anything." He looked under the fence and saw that the dog had her hand in its mouth. He began reaching under, trying to force it to release her. "I'm punching it in its mouth, just trying to make it let go, but it wasn't," he said. "I had my arm around her as I'm doing it, and I felt her sort of come back towards me.

"I thought, 'You beauty, it's let go.' I picked her up, and realised it hadn't let go." The dog had torn Thalia's arm off. Three months and nine operations later, the Standley family are still coming to terms with what happened to their youngest daughter and sister. "At the beginning you wake up and you hope every day, you know, that it will get better, it will get back to what it was," Mr Standley said. "But it doesn't. There is no back to what it was ... this is now our baseline, and this is what we work from."

All three of the Standleys' other children, including Jacob, 16, have been affected emotionally. "I've told them to be angry, to be sad, to be confused; it's all normal," Mrs Standley said. "You won't find another person who lives in suburbia where they've had their sister's arm chewed off by a dog." Remarkably, it is Thalia's positive attitude that is helping the family through their grief. "She's guiding us," Mrs Standley said.

"You let her guide you, you don't try and wrap her up in cotton wool because she was a really independent, determined little girl anyway [but] she's become even more independent as far as 'don't tell me I can't do something'. "She's a very special girl, with a lot of pride, and a great sense of humour." None of the three dogs that were in the yard when Thalia was attacked have been euthanised, and the Standleys have tried not to focus on retribution. But they do hope that dog owners take their daughter's story as encouragement to make sure their yards are secure. "If you're a dog owner, for God's sake, check your fences, because it doesn't take much of a gap," he said.

While the Standleys say they are thankful for the enormous support that they have received from the Valentine community, the full financial impact of the attack is only starting to hit home. Thalia will require a new prosthesis every year until she stops growing. The costs are enormous and unpredictable. A basic prosthesis costs about $15,000, and the price continues to climb as the design becomes more advanced. "We can't predict the cost yet," Ms Standley said. With the help of friends, they have organised a fundraising gala for Thalia in February.

For more information, go to reachingthalia.com.au. Newcastle Herald