DOG owner Harry Dewhurst needed surgery - after mistakenly stepping on his faithful pooch's head.

The 67-year-old secretary of the Memorial Sunday Football League and Ribblesdale League umpire was tip-toeing to the bathroom during the early hours when the accident happened.

"He didn't bite my foot, so I bent over to say sorry and to stroke him, and he bit my hand," said Harry, who has had the dog, Benji, for 12 years.

Harry underwent microsurgery at Blackburn Infirmary on an extensive gash to his right hand which could not be stitched.

Normally placid Benji sleeps in Harry and his wife Audrey's bedroom at their home in Bank Hey Lane North, Blackburn.

"Well what would you do if someone stood on your head? You should have seen the bedroom though, it was like a serial killer had been let loose with all the blood," said Harry. "They did not know who to put down, the dog or me!"

But within hours of being released from hospital, and despite a swathe of bandages Harry was filing his weekly league round-up by phone to the Lancashire Evening Telegraph's sports desk.

"It's a good job it did not happen during the summer months. I am an umpire in the Ribblesdale Cricket League and that's the hand I signal all my decisions with."

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