A man accused of telling his dog to attack a five-foot-tall woman sprawled on the ground stopped to wipe his eyes and clear his throat as he told the jury about turning to see his dog Boulder bleeding to death.

Alvin Matthews is charged with aggravated assault, assault with a weapon his black Labrador/Akita cross dog and assaulting the Mountie who arrested him after a dog fight ended in bloodshed last June 23 in Carcross.

Both bite victim Shannon Cunningham and her teenage daughter Sarah Kelly have testified that Matthews first 'sicced' his dog on their own equally-large dog, which wasn't tied up at the time, before telling Boulder to attack the older woman after she fell to the ground.

Cunningham testified that Matthews shoved her down as she tried to break up a second fight between the two dogs in her front yard.

Matthews' story differed significantly from the woman's, and he testified that when he grabbed the woman and spun her around, he'd intended to get her away from the scrapping animals to prevent her from being bitten.

'He was my best companion,' Matthews testified about his dog during his examination in chief yesterday afternoon. 'He was my best friend.'

Though the partially deaf man used his dog to help him hear moose in the bush during hunting, he said the animal wasn't an attack dog, though he would comply with basic commands.

He said that on June 23 he'd come into $50 and spent the evening splitting a six-pack of beer with his brother Raymond before walking over to a friend's house next door to Cunningham's place.

He said he could see Cunningham and her daughter already at their front door, and heard the older woman yelling at him to 'get your fó-ing dog out of my yard.'

Matthews told the jury he ignored the woman because 'I don't want no trouble. Shannon is not a happy camper at the best of times.'

He said the family's dog Sky ran by him and jumped on his dog. After the two canines fought for a couple seconds, he said he pulled the animals apart, gave Sky a little 'boot' and watched it scamper back toward Cunningham's home.

He testified he told the woman he was on a public roadway and that it was band land when he saw Cunningham's dog come running back out.

'I said Watch him, here he comes again,'' Matthews said he told Boulder.

When Cunningham told him to break up the dog fight, Matthews replied that she should break it up.

He said he watched the woman run by him and grab Boulder by his collar, lifting him with both hands by the back of his collar.

'My only concern was to get her away from there before she got bit,' Matthews said.

He explained how he reached around the woman, only three inches shorter than himself, and grabbed her wrists to take her hands off Boulder's collar.

He said he twisted the woman to his right and let her go, noting that he heard her yell out. Matthews testified he saw the woman on the ground, but didn't take note of her bleeding shin at that point.

He denied setting his dog on either Cunningham's dog or the woman herself.

Cunningham's husband, Howard Atlin, came outside and asked 'Did you do that?' the court was told. Matthews saw Cunningham's daughter come outside, though he didn't see the knife.

'Whap, Whap, Whap, Whap,' Matthews said, gesturing as if stabbing downward four times, explaining how Kelly stabbed his dog.

He ran toward the teen, wanting to get the knife from her for evidence.

'I wanted to report this,' he said.

He said the 16-year-old then held the knife at her shoulder level and walked toward him, backing him up around Atlin until he stepped on a rock. Matthews picked up the rock and threatened to throw it at her, he said.

The girl ran down the road in front of the house with Matthews in pursuit, but Matthews said heart disease and 30 years of smoking made him stop after only 10 metres.

'She was a rabbit,' he said. 'She was gone.'

Recounting turning around to see Boulder bleeding, Matthews started to cry in court and had to stop to collect himself, wiping his eyes and blowing his nose.

'I knew he was going to die,' Matthews said yesterday. 'I knew he had internal bleeding.'

Wanting to get medication from the nursing station so his dog wouldn't suffer as he died, Matthews picked up the dog and started carrying him.

Crying as he walked, the man had to rest several times because his arms were becoming tired carrying the large animal.

For some of the way, he coaxed the dog into walking part-way, and wrapped his shirt around the animal 'to keep the blood from squirting out. Every time he ran there'd be squirts of blood coming out.'

Matthews said that he asked the nurse for help at the health centre, but once Cunningham arrived to be treated, the nurse couldn't help him.

The man told the court that Const. Jeff Monkman, the officer who arrived from the Carcross RCMP detachment, didn't listen to him when he asked for help with his dog, and 'just came at me' when the constable arrested him. Both Matthews, Monkman and a passing motorist have testified about a scuffle between the two that ended in the 28-year-old and considerably larger constable punching Matthews briefly unconscious before being able to put on handcuffs.

Both Matthews and his sister Fay Scheffler testified about cuts, bruises, scrapes and head injuries the arrested man received. Scheffler had picked her brother up after he was released from jail the next day, and took him to the hospital.

The pair of siblings also attended the Whitehorse RCMP detachment together to lay a complaint against Monkman.

The Crown's cross-examination of Matthews started this morning and is slated to continue on into the afternoon.