Unsupervised dog kills 2 year old child

On Wednesday, right before the holiday weekend, a Las Vegas family met with tragedy as their dog attacked and killed their two year old son.

The child was at home with his grandmother and his newborn infant brother.  There were two dogs in the home (both are officially described as 40 lbs terrier mixes), and it remains unclear whether one or both of the dogs were involved in the attack. 

The police in Las Vegas seem to offer some pretty solid bits of advice to avoid horrific tragedies like this:

"The kids really want to play with the aimals.  The animals are not quite so sure and some times they get a little defensive, especially of their territory," said metro officer Bill Cassell.  Cassell also recommended that parents introduce children and dogs slowly. "For awhile, keep the children and the animals separated. Let the dogs gradually get used to the fact the children are in the house." 

Cassell also recommended against having children feed the dogs during the holidays. 

This is a horrible tragedy -- but one that is completely avoidable.   People MUST supervise their dogs around their young children. Fatal attacks are very rare and usually completely avoidable.

Here's a link to the story from CBS in Las Vegas.

And then this one from the Las Vegas Review Journal.

UPDATE: Turns out that the grandmother had just fed both of the dogs and then left the room.  The toddler, Alexander Adams,  apparently walked up to the feeding dogs and when the grandmother returned, the child had been killed.  We talk a lot here about supervising toddlers around dogs, and especially being careful with toddlers and dogs while eating.  This is a tragedy -- but a completely avoidable one. All the best to the family as they mourn the loss -- and may others please learn from their misfortune.  I applaud the media in Las Vegas for at least covering this as more details come out.

Comments

[anon]

Condolences to the family of this little boy.
Hopefully that good advice will sink in one of these days.
Heartbreaking.

[Christopher]

This reminds me of the story from last year where a Jack Russel Terrier killed an infant. It's simply wrong to believe that a small dog of any breed is not capable of doing great harm to a child.

While incidents like this always seem to bring out the idiots who believe that there is some law that would have prevented this, I think exactly what happened is measure enough.

I'm sure more than a handful of children have died this week due to mundane things like inhaling a toy, drowning in shallow water, being dropped or a fall, or a previously unknown allergy. Of course, only the dog incident will make the papers.