Newborn Hospitalized After Family Dog Drags Him From Crib

[wildTrose]

If he was over 5 lbs he could have gone home the next day...my first son was 2 weeks early and he went home the next day and my last son was 4 weeks early and he went home the next day as well...

 

[akashana]

I was thinking the same thing about not putting the dog to sleep. If he was adopted by someone without children he should still do fine. The way it reads, he wasn't trying to attack the baby, it was out of some misguided sense of protection or play.

As I've said, I always take the dog's side.

 

[laura08]

Here is a video of the father speaking and pictures of the dog Dakota. I also read in another news article Dakota is going to be adopted out. http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=8145058&page=1

 

[impatientredhead]

I was thinking the same thing about not putting the dog to sleep. If he was adopted by someone without children he should still do fine. The way it reads, he wasn't trying to attack the baby, it was out of some misguided sense of protection or play.

As I've said, I always take the dog's side.

If the dog is in the county shelter and has caused physical harm to a child it will most likely be put down no matter what people want to claim the intent of the dog was. What if the county releases the dog and the next rocket scientists decide to have friends over with their newborn? What if the dog nips a toddler? Major liability. Doing Malamute rescue I have had to bend over backwards to get a dog out that killed a smaller dog (who was offleash and in the mals driveway) or harmed a cat. And that is an animal.... put a kid in the hospital? No way I could get that dog out.

All dogs should be monitored around children, but northern breed dogs are extremely pack oriented and have high prey drive. A dog that is unfamiliar with the sounds a newborn makes can have a prey drive response to the higher pitch noises.

It was negligence that put them in this position and it was pure luck that the child survived. The dog could have shook him to death, popped an artery or crushed his skull no matter the intent. A baby monitor wouldn't do anything if that dog had pulled him out of the crib and shook him violently. They just would have heard the ruckus and it still would have been too late. Any dog, but especially a big dog cannot have access to a newborn. Monitoring from a distance is a false sense of security.

The parents will get a second chance and their dog probably won't.

 

[angelmom]

I'm sorry but if your child is born three weeks early, then he's not going home from the hospital right away. That gives Dad time to go buy a baby monitor. I'm not jumping to conclusions, I'm going by what I've read. It also said in the article that they knew one of their dogs was physically able to open doors. No one knows if they could have done more except the parents. I'm sure they have tremendous guilt for what happened. Who knows? Maybe they could have done everything right and it still happened.

Not to be rude, but that is just not true. 37 weeks is considered term for a healthy pregnancy. I have one friend who had her baby 6 weeks early (5lbs) and one who had her baby 4 weeks early (over 6lbs) and both went home in the usual amount of time.

 

[lizzybeth]

Not to be rude, but that is just not true. 37 weeks is considered term for a healthy pregnancy. I have one friend who had her baby 6 weeks early (5lbs) and one who had her baby 4 weeks early (over 6lbs) and both went home in the usual amount of time.

I stand corrected then. I assumed (and we know what that will get you) that a child born that early would have to be monitored for a while. My apologies.