A Cautionary Tale

This is true story, something which actually happened in my area recently. It's extremely troubling, so reader caution is advised. You will definitely want to read this yourself before you consider allowing children/teens to read it. I'm posting it here as a reminder to all about the need for caution and supervision when children and dogs are in the same house, even seemingly well behaved and non threatening dogs.

The dog in the story was not one of the larger, potentially more aggressive types, not a pit bull, Rottweiler, German Shepard, or any of the other breeds we often associate with such things (whether rightfully or not). It was a medium size, very friendly looking, well behaved, lab mix noticeably smaller than a purebred lab. A family with a similar sized dog of their own was keeping the dog in question while his owner was on vacation. The dog was quiet, non aggressive, and well behaved. No problems at all.

The couple had a 2 month old baby. Both their own dog and the one they were dog sitting seemed well behaved around the baby. On the day in question, the baby was in one of those indoor swing things. The mother had left the baby in the swing, with the father in charge, when she went out to run some errands. When she returned an hour or so later, the baby was on the floor, apparently having been pulled from the swing by the dog. The baby's leg was severed, ripped off, at the hip. The dog they had been keeping for a friend was covered in blood. The father was sleeping soundly on the sofa nearby.

The baby was still breathing when the mother came home but died in route to the hospital. The dog, its face, neck, and chest covered in blood, was determined to be the culprit. With the father asleep, no one knows exactly what happened, but it's believed that the motion of the baby in the swing probably got the dog excited somehow. Authorities caution that dogs sometimes feel excited or threatened by babies in swings or in those 'bouncy' things that go up and down. Something about the motion is threatening to some dogs.

This story is close to home for me because when we were small children, playing in our own yard, my brother was attacked by a neighbor's English bulldog. When it happened, my brother was holding a toy tractor by its larger, back wheels, holding it out in front of him (toward the dog) while causing the tractor body to flip or spin around the back wheels. One minute everything was fine, the dog was just watching. The next minute the dog was on top of my brother (roughly 4yrs) and biting his face. Luckily, our father was home, heard us screaming, and ran outside discharging his shotgun into the air. The dog ran. My brother lived but bares a scar on his cheek to this day. To my mind the motion of the tractor swinging around those back tires is not unlike that of a child in a swing, both items alternately swinging toward the dog, then away, then back again, repeatedly.

As to the story of the mauled baby, my 1st thoughts were along the lines of why would the mother leave such a small child alone with such an obviously irresponsible father. Sleeping, after all, is NOT baby sitting. Seems the authorities had similar thoughts as charges of neglect were filed. This all happened just a week or two ago, and that's all I know at this time. This story is so awful that it haunts me still since the day I 1st heard it. Even though it is a horrible story, I'm telling it in hopes of preventing another, similar occurrence. No matter how well behaved and friendly your dog seems, I hope you will think about this awful story if you are ever tempted to leave the dog alone with a baby or small child even for a moment. Small children just don't know how to behave around dogs, and dogs don't know how to interpret the behavior of small children.