A schoolboy is still traumatised by a dog attack that left him needing 40 stitches, his family revealed today.

The parents of seven-year-old Charlie Faulding said their son was still too poorly and upset to return to school nearly three weeks after the incident.

Mark Faulding, Charlie’s dad, found his son lying motionless in a pool of blood with a growling Japanese Akita standing over him in the garden of a house in Hustler Street, Undercliffe, on Monday, June 2.

Now the family has taken the decision to move house because flashbacks of the heart-stopping moment, which happened only two doors away, are “too painful”.

Sarah Knowles, Charlie’s mum, said: “It has been a total nightmare. We are moving home this weekend because of what’s happened.

“We can’t stay here because it’s too painful. Every time my partner goes out of the back door, he sees the place where it happened and he says the feeling is awful.

“He has broken his back doing the new house up so we can move five minutes down the road.

“For Charlie, the shock is coming out now and he seems traumatised by what’s happened. He has been really weepy and he is having nightmares.

“He is crying all the time and won’t go anywhere near dogs.

“We went to the Mela and a big Rottweiler ran up to the gate. He was just so scared.”

Charlie has returned to hospital every day since the incident to have his stitches checked, bandages changed and to be monitored for possible infection.

The family said they were still unhappy at West Yorkshire Police’s reaction to the incident and were considering taking the matter further with Bradford Council’s Dog Warden service.

Police concluded that no offence had been committed by the dog’s owners because the dog was in a secure pen, surrounded by a high wall behind a padlocked gate.

Officers pointed out that the child had climbed into the dog’s space and had previously been advised by the dog’s owners and his parents not to enter the garden to retrieve his football unaccompanied.

Following the incident, the dog’s owners took the decision to re-house their dog in another part of the district with friends.

But they said it would be “cruel” for the dog to be put to sleep for something that was not its fault, adding that they always kept their garden secure.