Pet dog fatally mauls 3-day-old baby in San Diego
SAN DIEGO COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF ANIMAL SERVICES VIA AP
This photo provided by the San Diego County Department of Animal Services shows a male American Staffordshire terrier-mix named Polo in their custody after it mauled to death a 3-day-old boy, police said today.
SAN DIEGO » A 3-day-old boy was mauled to death by the family dog while they were in bed with the child’s parents, police said today.
The parents were in bed watching TV with their newborn son and dog Thursday night when the mother coughed. The coughing startled the dog and it unexpectedly bit the baby, Sgt. Tu Nguyen said.
He said the parents pulled the animal off and took their only child to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“At this time, we’re looking at this as nothing more than a tragic incident,” said Nguyen, a member of the child abuse unit.
An autopsy is underway to determine the cause of death.
Animal control officers took the 2-year-old dog, a neutered male American Staffordshire terrier-mix named Polo, into custody, said Dan DeSousa, deputy director of the county Department of Animal Services. The dog will be held in quarantine for 10 days to determine whether it has rabies.
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It will be up to the owners to decide whether to reclaim the dog, DeSousa said.
2 responses to “Pet dog fatally mauls 3-day-old baby in San Diego”
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So sad. Dogs should not be in homes. They were breed to guard your property. They were breed to work. Any dog over 10 lbs.should be outside,period. It’s not the dogs fault, it’s the naive owner. Tragic.
It you are familar with these sort of pitbull owners, they tend to be on the younger side, they purposely get a pit bull as their pet because it makes them feel more powerful. A pit bull and other large aggresive dogs should never be living with babies or small children because like this situation , you can never predict the behavior 100% of the time. In Honolulu, you see some of these young pitbull owners walking their pitbulls and you can tell if the owner should ever lose control of their leash, their dog would attack another dog or even small child.