The owner of the dogs whom Tantyi resident Dideka Njovane claims attacked her is attempting to set the record straight.
The owner of the dogs whom Tantyi resident Dideka Njovane claims attacked her is attempting to set the record straight.
Qaqambile Mpotulo is a local shopowner who says his dogs are not “capable of a hurting anyone like that”. He defended them, saying that they are tame and that a large number of people walk past his house every day and that the dogs do not even bark at them.
A week ago Grocott’s Mail published a story about 60-year-old Njovane who claimed that Mpotulo’s five dogs attacked and bit her on her way home from church.
She said the incident happened around 9pm and she was rescued by a teenager who had heard the commotion. “I want people to know that I do not have killer dogs.
Those dogs are tame,” Mpotulo said. He says since the story appeared in Grocott’s Mail he has lost a lot of business because people say they are scared of his dogs.
“I have lost customers since Grocott’s published that story. People who used to come to my shop are afraid to do so now because they think they will be attacked by my dogs.
They say they are scared of the killer dogs. “My dogs are not vicious, I used to have vicious dogs before but they had a separate enclosure. I would only let them out at night when the gates were locked.”
He added: “Everyone knows that these dogs are not vicious. There are people who walk up and down this road every day and no one has ever been attacked by my dogs.”
A few days after the story was published, Mpotulo said he had been visited by police officers who had a court order to take his dogs for tests.
He said the police told him that a community member had informed them that his dogs had attacked and killed an elderly man who lives a few yards away from Mpotulo’s house.
“It really hurt me. I could not believe that someone would think that my dogs are capable of taking a life,” he said. One of Mpotulo’s dogs was taken for tests but was returned the same day.
Meanwhile, Njovane refuted Mpotulo’s claims saying that it was Mpotulo’s dogs that had attacked her that night: “Those dogs came out of Qaqambile’s yard and chased me, the reason why I ran back was because they were chasing me.
I fell a few feet way from his yard. Those were his dogs, he cannot deny it.” Police spokesperson Constable Phumlani Wayi said the outcome of the case is to be decided by the public prosecutor at the Grahamstown Magistrate’s Court.
