A dog's paws have been horrifically mutilated by shards of tin cans in a park.

Now Dotty's furious owner is blaming workmen who failed to pick up the litter and churned it up during mowing, leaving "razor" pieces.

The three-year-old border collie had the pads of all her paws cut after running across the shredded cans.

Owner Jackie Sutton, fom Cheriton, near Folkestone, said in a letter to the council: "The local gardeners were too lazy to remove them from the grass before mowing over them and turning them into mini shards of razor pieces."

Dotty injured her paws at Cheriton Recreation Ground, off Stanley Road, when she was being walked by Miss Sutton's 16-year-old daughter Chloe.

They were on their way to the dog exercise area. Dotty needed immediate veterinary treatment and her two back pads had to be glued together.

Her front paws were so cut that the top layers of skin were hanging off.
She is now bandaged to each elbow. Her feet are now too raw and tender to walk on for at least two weeks.

Miss Sutton, 46, says that two days after the incident she returned to the park to find broken glass all over the children's play area.

She says the park has become "a tip" and a child could be hurt next.

Tins and bottles litter Cheriton Recreation Ground

Shepway District Council refused to accept that its staff had been "lazy".

Spokesman Sarah Smith said: "We are very sorry to hear about Dotty's accident.

"Like Miss Sutton, we hate to see our parks littered with cans, rubbish and, even worse, broken glass.

"We clear glass every day from parks and open spaces and in this case had cleared it only two hours before Miss Sutton visited.

"We are disappointed that Miss Sutton feels our park staff are lazy. This is certainly far from the truth.

"When they see cans they will pick them up, but this is not always easy when you are high up on a tractor."

Mrs Smith also pointed out that this can be a particular problem on the first mowing of the year - as this was - when the grass would be especially long.

The issue has been reported to Shepway Community Safety Unit and Kent Police.