A family has been left distraught after their beloved pet dog was ripped apart in a children’s play park leaving it with fatal injuries reminiscent of “a horror film.”

Two pit-bull-type Dogs mauled 11-year-old English springer spaniel, Ted, while he was being walked by his 16-year-old owner Lucinda McGrath in Lund Park, Keighley .

The teenager also needed hospital treatment to bruising and swelling on her hand when one of the dogs turned on her as she attempted to keep the dogs from savaging her pet.

Her dad James McGrath, 47, said: “I ran down to the park to find my 16-year-old daughter stroking my dog while trying to hold his stomach and intestines in because they had just been ripped out.

“Someone had put a sheet over my dog. I lifted up the sheet and it was just horrendous. It was like something out of a special effects horror film.”

Mr McGrath said a woman had been walking the two bull terriers in Lund Park when one slipped its lead and began attacking the spaniel. The other then joined in the vicious mauling.

Their owner and a man believed to be her husband tried unsuccessfully to pull the dogs away from Ted together with Miss McGrath, who was bitten on the hand and was later taken to hospital for a tetanus injection.

As Miss McGrath comforted her dying pet, the woman went to her home in Mannville Grove, to tell Mr McGrath about the tragedy.

He said: “She said ‘my dogs have attacked your dog’ and I said ‘how bad is it?’ She just looked down, so I knew it was serious.”

Following the attack the dogs were taken away from the scene and Mr McGrath, his daughter and partner wrapped up their pet in a sheet and rushed him 11 miles to PDSA vets off Wakefield Road, Bradford, to have him put down.

An emotional Mr McGrath said he was angry that Ted had been put through unnecessary suffering after the attack, which happened at about 4.30pm on Sunday, because there is no on-call emergency vet service in Keighley.

He said: “It is absolutely disgusting that a town the size of Keighley does not have a vet available. It is unbelievable that we had to drive all the way to Bradford with my dog covered in blood. If I had known I would have strangled him myself to stop him suffering.”

He also said that his daughter’s iPod Nano – a birthday present – had also fallen out of her pocket during the ordeal.

He believes the iPod, which is purple with blue headphones, was later picked up by a youth who was among a group of Asian youths who “stood by and watched” his pet getting mauled.

“When we got in the car to take the dog to the vets, one of them has walked up and picked it up,” he said. “It had sentimental value because it was a birthday present. I would appeal to the local Asian community leaders of these people’s parents that if they find their son comes home with a new purple iPod to urge them to hand it in to the police.”

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said the dogs would be assessed to find out whether they are a banned breed under the Dangerous Dogs Act.

He said: “We were called at 6.22pm on Sunday to reports of a dog attack in Lund Park, Keighley. Two pit-bull-type dogs are reported to have fatally wounded another dog and bit its 16-year-old female owner. She was taken to hospital for treatment to a minor hand injury.

“The owner of the two dogs has been identified and Neighbourhood Police Teams are currently investigating the incident.”