Animal trainer Kang Hyung-wook weighs in on recent dog biting incident

CCTV footage shows an eight-year-old child being bitten by a dog in an apartment complex parking lot in Ulsan, South Gyeongsang, on July 11. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Animal trainer and television personality Kang Hyung-wook expressed his thoughts on Monday over the recent incident of an 8-year-old child getting bitten by a neighbor’s dog.

Kang uploaded a screenshot of CCTV footage of the incident to his Instagram account on Monday, with the caption reading “My heart aches.” The screenshot shows a scene from the dog bite incident, which took place at about 1:20 p.m. on July 11 in an apartment parking lot in Ulsan.

The CCTV footage, uploaded on an online community by the family of the 8-year-old victim, showed the victim running away from the dog. The victim subsequently fell down and was attacked by the dog for more than two minutes, until a delivery driver who was passing by intervened and removed the dog from the victim.

The 119 emergency team, which was dispatched after receiving reports from nearby residents, transported the victim — who was bleeding from the neck and limbs — to a hospital shortly afterwards. The emergency team also captured the dog that was wandering around the scene of the incident and handed it over to the abandoned dog protection center.

“The child was lying flat on his back with his arms and legs stretched out and blood was flowing all over,” said the delivery driver who rescued the victim. “The dog was not just biting the child but literally shaking his body.”

“The media has reported that there was no life-threatening wound left by the dog, but there was,” the father of the victim said. “If it hadn’t been for the delivery driver, our son could have died on the spot.”

The victim has since undergone surgery on his neck, arms and legs and is currently being hospitalized.

The police are investigating the dog’s owner, a man in his 70s, who is a resident of an apartment near where the incident took place.

The police requested that the dog be euthanized, saying there is a high risk the dog could cause another serious accident, but the prosecution rejected the request, citing the need for further information.

The police plan to again request the dog be euthanized.

Kang Hyung-wook has on multiple occasions expressed his views in relation to dog bite accidents.

After a fatal dog bite incident in Namyangju, Gyeonggi, that took place in May last year, Kang made a statement on a KBS program called “Dogs are Wonderful.”

“It is very sad to see the victim being dragged away by the dog,” Kang said at the time. “As an animal trainer, I think I should say that problematic dogs can be rectified through training, but as a trainer with the public influence that I have, I should strongly say that we have no choice but to euthanize dogs if they are raised this way.

“Local governments should never make decisions based on public reaction,” Kang continued.

“Problems like these happen all the time,” said Kang. “As a person who works in this field, I hear a lot of stories that are not even exposed by the media. We have to think about what is right and how we should raise dogs in the future.”

BY JANG GU-SEUL [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]