A DOG owner’s finger was left cut to the bone after he tried to save his pet from being attacked in a pub.

Northallerton Magistrates’ Court heard on Friday that the man was injured when his Scottish terrier was set upon by a border terrier in the care of Nicholas Jenkins.

The court heard that the dog attack happened when the man was entering the George and Dragon pub in Hudswell, near Richmond, North Yorkshire, on August 14 at about 4pm.

He said: “My dog was just crossing the threshold of the pub, the other dog hit him full-on, knocking him back onto the patio, he jumped on top of him and clamped onto his throat.

“When I collected myself, I tried to pull my dog away because he was on a lead, but the dog was clamped on his throat and was really going at him.”

He said he kicked at the dogs to separate them and then picked up his own pet, which is when he said the border terrier bit him.

Adam Walker, prosecuting, said the man suffered tissue loss on the top of his middle finger, leaving the bone exposed, and a laceration to his ring finger.

Jenkins appeared for trial on Friday originally charged with being in charge of a dangerously out of control dog which caused an injury.

Jenkins, who was looking after the dog for his son, had pleaded not guilty, and a trial was due to take place.

However, after the legal representatives left the courtroom to discuss matters, a new charge of being in charge of a dog that was dangerously out of control was put to Jenkins.

Mr Walker explained Jenkins accepted the new charge, which did not cover the injury, because it could not be established for certain which dog bit the man.

Abbi Whelan, mitigating for Jenkins, told the court: “The position all along was that he didn’t accept that anybody could be sure who inflicted the injury.”

Ms Whelan said that Jenkins had his son’s dog under the table with his foot over its lead, but at some point he must have released the pressure and the dog went wandering off.

She said that the dog had never attacked any animal or person before and that its behaviour towards the other man's dog was “certainly something that was out of character”.

The dog was later taken to Canada by Jenkins’s son who emigrated there after the family were originally told that no action was likely to be taken.

After pleading guilty to the new charge, 64-year-old Jenkins, of Lyons Road, Richmond, was ordered to pay £300 in compensation along with court fines and costs of £275.

John Bacon, chair of the magistrates' bench Told the court the case was a "salutory lesson" to anyone taking their dog into a pub and not having it under tight control.