Family dog fatally mauls newborn baby
Parents, son and pit bull-mix were in bed at home when startled dog bit the infant
A 3-day-old baby was fatally mauled by a pet dog in front of the child’s parents at their Mira Mesa home Thursday night, San Diego police said Friday.
The parents were in bed, watching TV, with their newborn son and pit bull-mix dog when the mother coughed, startling the dog, child abuse unit Sgt. Tu Nguyen said.
The dog reacted by biting the baby, he said. The parents pulled the animal off and raced the child to a hospital, where he was declared dead.
“At this time it appears to be a tragic accident,” Nguyen said. “It’s such a horrific, tragic case.”
Child abuse detectives were called to the unit at the Esplanade Apartments on Flanders Drive, off Camino Ruiz and near Mira Mesa High School, about 8 p.m. Thursday to investigate. Nguyen said he didn’t know if the couple have other children, but no other children were removed from the home or placed in other care.
Nguyen said the investigation will be completed after an autopsy confirms the cause of death.
Police called county animal control officers about 12:30 a.m. to take the dog. The owners were not home at the time and the dog was contained inside the house, said Dan DeSousa, deputy director of the county Department of Animal Services.
It is a 2-year-old, neutered male American Staffordshire terrier-mix named Polo, DeSousa said. He said the dog will be held in 10-day quarantine to determine whether it has rabies.
After that it will be up to the owner to decide whether to reclaim the dog, he said.
A resident who lives in the same apartment complex as the couple said she didn’t know them but regularly saw the then-pregnant woman walk the dog.
“It’s terrible. It breaks my heart,” Midalia Hernandez said in Spanish, with tears in her eyes as she thought about the tragic incident. “I would never want to go through something like that.”
Hernandez has a 1-year-old son.
Similar tragedies have been reported across the country, often with dogs not considered aggressive or dangerous.
Correction
A previous version of this story had the wrong web address for dogsbite.org. It has since been corrected.
In 2015, 14 fatal dog attack victims, or 41 percent, were children ages 9 and younger, according to dogsbite.org.
Experts say even the tamest family dog can change behavior when a new baby is brought home, and parents are warned to never leave young children alone with dogs, especially on the floor.
“Dogs can become agitated by the sounds and movements of a baby. Dogs have been known to try to move a baby by carrying the baby in their mouths the way a mother dog might do with her puppies. Other dogs have hurt babies because the baby moves and sounds like prey,” according to the nonprofit Doggone Safe, which aims to prevent dog bites through education and victim support.
