An 11 day old child in Independence, MN was bitten and killed by a Siberian Husky. The newborn infant was left in a car seat on the bed unattended and the dog apparently bit the child. The child died from head injuries. While there were adults in the home when the attack occurred, no one was directly supervising the child at the time of the bite and thus, no one saw the incident.
While there have never been any reports of the dog being aggressive in the past, police had been called to the home numerous times on other complaints.
Tragedies like this are avoidable. And it is important for us to use incidents like this to educate people on the need to supervise all interactions between infants and toddlers and dogs, and also why it is important to properly handle bringing newborn infants into the home with dogs. Here's a great video from Jen Shyrock at Dogs & Storks on how to begin preparing your dog for a newborn baby.
My heart goes out to the family and the loss they've suffered.
The story has been picked up by 30 media outlets.
its very tragic that something like this would happen, but i dont understand why the parents would leave the child in a room with a dog unattended. What a terrible lesson to have to learn. My heart goes out to the family.
Posted by: Linda Stillwagon | February 21, 2010 at 06:48 PM
What an awful story. There is a Dogs and Storks class given in town by a great trainer, Sympawtico. I took the class myself and it is VERY informative. I think it will help most family with babies and dog and prevent such horrible things from happening. As well as prevent dogs from ending up in shelters when people have babies.
Posted by: Christie | February 22, 2010 at 09:26 AM
That was so terrible, poor little baby. Hope the message of this case reach throughout every pet owners, even older human could be in harm if they are not knowledgeable enough to train and care of pets...
Posted by: Hannah | October 18, 2010 at 03:59 AM