Adelaide dog attack: Terrified family reveal how they managed to stop a savage mauling when their pet suddenly tried to rip them to shreds

An Adelaide man has relived the horrific moment a dog suddenly attacked him and his family and their desperate attempt to fight it off before it tore them apart.

He and his sister have had to undergo multiple surgeries after their family dog, a Sharpei-Pitbull cross named Caliche, started attacking them during an argument at a Brompton home on Tuesday.

Clifford Newchurch, 42, was visiting family when the dog suddenly lunged at him in a vicious attack, latching onto his hand and tearing at the flesh with its teeth.

He tried to fend it off with the flames from his cigarette lighter while his family doused it in boiling water when the beast turned and destroyed his sister Stella, 39.

Blood from the attack was sprayed throughout the house and soaked into a mattress, while the dog was trapped in a bedroom and desperately fought to get out.

The man’s six-year-old nephew was forced to cower in a locked bathroom for his safety as the carnage raged throughout the house. Another two-year-old toddler in the home was unharmed in the incident.

The family had owned the Sharpei-Poitbull crossbreed dog for eight years

Bloody handprints are scattered throughout the house as the family battled the beast

The vicious attack splattered blood throughout the house

“(The child) was so scared; all he wanted was bug cuddles from his mother,” the victims’ father told Nine News.

‘(His mother) was dragged by the dog, it was terrible. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and I just screamed.

‘We had to pour hot water on the dog so it would stop attacking my daughter.’

Clifford admitted he thought his hand would be permanently damaged by the attack or even have to be amputated after Tuesday’s attack.

“Just the way he hit my arm and my hand, it looked like he was enjoying it, like he wanted more… I thought I was going to lose my hand,” he told Nine.

Video from inside the home shows the room and hallway where the attack took place covered in blood, with bloody handprints smeared on a mattress and door handle from where the siblings tried to fend off the attack.

“I remember his eyes and his face and that look on him, it was an evil look,” Clifford said.

“I’m a forty-year-old man and he scared me to death.”

The family managed to pry the woman’s dog free before it was locked in a bedroom, as the family fought to keep the door closed as the powerful dog tore at the wood.

The victim’s father added: ‘My daughter had to hold the door so it couldn’t come out but he had his teeth torn trying to open it.

‘He’s that strong. Luckily he didn’t get the door open.’

His sister remains in the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where she underwent extensive surgery to save her arm.

The dog, which was in the family’s possession for eight years, has now been handed over to the municipality to be put down.

“The police came and they were scared too,” says the victims’ father.

‘I want him put down. I never want more dogs in my life.’

The dog has now been handed over to the municipality to be put down

Blood from the savage mauling soaked and stained a mattress

The attack comes as Britain unveiled plans to ban all American XL bully dogs by the end of the year after a wave of attacks there.

In a video announcement on Friday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the breed would be banned because of a “pattern of behavior” that he said “cannot continue.”

Mr Sunak said he has told ministers to convene a panel of experts, including police, to define the breed so it can then be banned.

The announcement came after a man was killed in a suspected XL Bully attack in Stonnall, Staffordshire, the third incident involving reportedly out-of-control dogs in the West Midlands in less than a week.

The fatal accident occurred just a day after a 10-year-old boy was attacked by an out-of-control dog while playing football less than three miles away. Less than a week earlier, an XL bully mauled an 11-year-old girl in Birmingham.