# Cleveland infant killed



## JessicaR (Oct 25, 2016)

Very sad news to hear. My heart goes out to the family.
Which of course now has my mom worried that I brought such a vicious breed into our home around her grandchildren.


Officials identify baby killed by family dog in Cleveland | cleveland.com


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## sebrench (Dec 2, 2014)

That is heartbreaking. I can't imagine losing a child in that way. 

Of course, there are some GSDs that aren't suitable for households with kids, especially those not raised around children, but I would reassure your mom that such behavior isn't typical. We have two GSDs and two young children under 3, and the dogs are wonderful with the kids. It is important to supervise and be vigilant, however.


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## Stevenzachsmom (Mar 3, 2008)

I had seen this story. Very sad for all involved.


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## Joys (Nov 6, 2017)

It is heartbreaking. I've wondered if the dog was jealous of the new baby or if something triggered the prey drive. So sad.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

The story I saw about this, picked a stock photo of a GSD in a shelter, an older, friendly looking dog from 2015, and added that to the story. 

I know all of our concern should be for the parents of the child who is dead, but this is very rare for a GSD. Not unheard of. But rare. And, I don't like them just plastering a stock photo of a GSD onto the story. 

Well, we have very little to go on here. I am not willing to blame or bash anyone. It is just terribly sad for the family. The dog they probably loved will be put down too. And I doubt that will make them feel better. How horrendous. Sometimes it is an accident. Shepherds are very smart, and great mothers -- even the males. When a puppy cries, they can become a little frantic to figure out how to help it. Human babies can't take what a puppy can, like being lifted and carried by a dam. 

Any dog can kill a baby that age. I just hate that it was a GSD this time.


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## tim_s_adams (Aug 9, 2017)

This kind of thing ALWAYS is attributable to the mismanagement of the owners, not the dog...whatever breed. I feel so sorry for the child and the parents...


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## MineAreWorkingline (May 2, 2015)

From what I understand, the dog was crated in another room, I wouldn't be too quick to victim blame. 

I personally don't think babies and dogs should be together unsupervised but that is still no reason for a dog to kill a child if that would occur for a few minutes. I was just reading about a dog of another breed that killed a new born as the father, the mother, and the baby with the dog all laid on the bed watching tv. 

The last two times they accused GSDs of killing a baby and then a toddler, neither time was it a GSD once pictures were produced.


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## tim_s_adams (Aug 9, 2017)

MineAreWorkingline said:


> I wouldn't be too quick to victim blame.


Who then, would you blame the child or the dog?

IME GSDs are typically great with kids, even infants, but if there's any question at all management falls on the dog's owner, period. I have a ZERO tolerance for whoops when it comes to kids...


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## MineAreWorkingline (May 2, 2015)

I don't believe for one minute that the vast majority of dogs would harm a newborn baby. That still doesn't mean that parents should be careless. Most dogs in the same situation as the one in this incident would not have escaped their crate and ran into another room to kill a baby. Approve of it or not, many parents will leave a baby alone with the family dog for a moment to run and get a glass of water or a quick bathroom trip or grab the phone. It happens all the time and the dog rarely moves in for the kill.

There can be a lot of reasons as to why this particular incident happened and many of those reasons can be founded in genetics such a prey drive, prey drift, or even inheriting the kill portion of the prey sequence (think of a soft mouthed Lab which often lacks the kill bite). It is the dog.

If one would follow dog bite related fatalities at all, one would find that most dog breeds have NEVER killed a human. Another thing one would notice is that most of the fatalities are by the same handful of breeds with a rare outlier of another breed. Not only is it the dog, but it can be specific to certain breeds.


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## tim_s_adams (Aug 9, 2017)

MineAreWorkingline said:


> That still doesn't mean that parents should be careless....Approve of it or not, many parents will leave a baby alone with the family dog for a moment to run and get a glass of water or a quick bathroom trip or grab the phone.


What then would constitute careless in your mind? 



> Not only is it the dog, but it can be specific to certain breeds.


Sorry, I just don't buy it! GSDs are typically very good with kids. Some aren't. But again, is it up to the dog or the owner to manage the situation?


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## MineAreWorkingline (May 2, 2015)

Careless would constitute unnecessary risks like not acknowledging_ the danger a *dog* could present_ to a child. An example could be the many pictures seen on the internet with dogs and babies. Let the doorbell ring and watch the average dog plow over that baby. 

It is up to the owner to manage the situation based on whether, as you said, *the dog* is good with kids or not, or other similar criteria. Whether the owner mismanaged or not_ is contingent on the dog and its behavior._


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## Kibs (Oct 25, 2017)

selzer said:


> The story I saw about this, picked a stock photo of a GSD in a shelter, an older, friendly looking dog from 2015, and added that to the story.


I love it when articles don't even specify the breed of a dog (and likely don't know for sure) - and then add a Pit stock photo to it. Just ridiculous.

And in this case, while they might have gotten the breed right I don't like the trend to blame a specific kind of dog. It doesn't help but instead builds a nonsensical mass-phobia of sorts.


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## thegooseman90 (Feb 24, 2017)

Keyword being could and there's always a chance that the dog *COULD* be a danger to a small child. I would never risk it because ive heard some crazy stories of accidents and just plain bizarre incidents that could have been avoided by supervising the interaction. I agree with Tim on this one. The parents should've done a better job here. Very tragic and heartbreaking nonetheless


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## MineAreWorkingline (May 2, 2015)

thegooseman90 said:


> Keyword being could and there's always a chance that the dog *COULD* be a danger to a small child. I would never risk it because ive heard some crazy stories of accidents and just plain bizarre incidents that could have been avoided by supervising the interaction. I agree with Tim on this one. The parents should've done a better job here. Very tragic and heartbreaking nonetheless


What would you have done better than to crate the dog in another room?


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## thegooseman90 (Feb 24, 2017)

Well when my dog is crated and I'm not around he's crated in another room with the door shut. That's for his peace and relaxation as well as to contain any destruction to that one room if he did break out of his crate. When I'm outside he's outside with me. The kids are never unsupervised anyway but if they were he'd have to destroy a crate and a door without me hearing and then I'd still say it's my fault because I left my small kids alone. If we're all outside and I don't want him getting too rowdy with the kids he's in a padlocked kennel. 

My dog and kids socialize and play together but only when I'm there to supervise and I can see right away if one or the other is uncomfortable and I'm right there at arms length away. Trust me I take it very seriously and have always made it a point to be overly cautious if anything. I'll never say to myself "I regret being too safe".


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## car2ner (Apr 9, 2014)

I think Gooseman has the right idea in general. Better to have an over abundance of caution. While vets, insurance companies, dog trainers, humane societies, fanciers and lawyers are all trying to figure out the hows and whys of dog bites, we need to do what we can to manage the situation. Last statistic I read was that 98% of pet dogs never bite to hurt a human. This was in an article about the woman who was recently mauled by her two dogs while out on a walk. I don't know where they got that number from but figuring how many dogs are out there, 2 % is still many dogs. 

These are terrible events that in hind sight, people often still don't understand how it could have happened.


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## CometDog (Aug 22, 2017)

Too little details, we can only speculate. Was penned in kitchen, got loose and went into bedroom and bit baby. No details what kind of bite except that it was head trauma. It does not take much of a bite to cause head trauma on a 2 week old. Their skull plates are still extremely soft and mobile at that point. So you can't say how severe of a bite it was based on the age of the baby. Without a picture, can't even say if it was a full GSD, a mix, or if a pure GSD what lines..high drive? Who knows. A high drive dog kept from a new living thing in the house that squeaks and sounds like a new stuffy can result in tragedy without it being an actual attack. 

It's heartbreaking, yet a totally speculative situation. 

I do not leave my dogs unattended with my kids at this point. They are 6 mos and 10 months...the dogs. If I have to cook, they go in a crate. However, I have had one of my kids open a crate without permission (he has autism) so now I have locks on them. My point is any kind of accident can happen. We are all human and sometimes in a busy household we only have to turn our backs but for a second. It's why training is so important. Backup to accidentally opened crates and fences that are jumped over.

Who knows what happened here. It is tragic in any event


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## CometDog (Aug 22, 2017)

MineAreWorkingline said:


> I don't believe for one minute that the vast majority of dogs would harm a newborn baby. That still doesn't mean that parents should be careless. Most dogs in the same situation as the one in this incident would not have escaped their crate and ran into another room to kill a baby. Approve of it or not, many parents will leave a baby alone with the family dog for a moment to run and get a glass of water or a quick bathroom trip or grab the phone. It happens all the time and the dog rarely moves in for the kill.
> 
> There can be a lot of reasons as to why this particular incident happened and many of those reasons can be founded in genetics such a prey drive, prey drift, or even inheriting the kill portion of the prey sequence (think of a soft mouthed Lab which often lacks the kill bite). It is the dog.
> 
> If one would follow dog bite related fatalities at all, one would find that most dog breeds have NEVER killed a human. Another thing one would notice is that most of the fatalities are by the same handful of breeds with a rare outlier of another breed. Not only is it the dog, but it can be specific to certain breeds.


Could you elaborate on what prey drift and kill sequence means? Thanks


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## MineAreWorkingline (May 2, 2015)

CometDog said:


> Could you elaborate on what prey drift and kill sequence means? Thanks


Predatory or prey drift is where a dog can be stimulated and misdirected into prey behaviors by the actions of a non prey stimulus such as a small dog running or the cry of an injured or frightened dog or other such triggers. 

Prey sequence is the natural prey drive broken down into heritable components. Not all dogs inherit every component whereas some dogs can inherit all.

To simplify: Hunt>stalk>chase>bite>kill>eat.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Some things you can't take back, so being cautious to the extreme is certainly understandable. 

But I am not willing to blame the parents here. They did not leave the dog run loose while the baby was on the floor and Whoops! the dog killed the baby while we were out back cooking a bbq. 

Speaking about whoops! If your dog and bitch have enough time to get in the family way, then they have enough time to kill your infant. We seem to be overly accepting of the idea of oopses because a dog is going to do what a dog is going to do, or they will climb over or dig under or go through walls to get to a bitch in heat. And folks never imagined he would be able to... 

But some are ready to blame the parents on this one. Which is it? Should you know what your dog is capable of -- going over pens, breaking out of crates, chewing through solid wallls. Or can an accident be foreseeable only after the fact. 

I wonder too how the baby died. There was a bite wound to the head. The baby died two hours later at the hospital. This dog did not go on a killing spree, or the child would have been dead on the spot. I wonder if the dog was trying to take the baby to its parents. That has happened before. It was a GSD bitch. They are such great mothers, so very attentive to every squeak their newborns make, and they can become very nervous when a baby is crying because they want to fix it. The problem is a two-week-old human infant may not survive being transported by a GSD. 

This is terribly sad. Some are using it to hate on the parents, and others to hate on the breed of dog. I think that makes it all the more tragic.


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## CometDog (Aug 22, 2017)

selzer said:


> Some things you can't take back, so being cautious to the extreme is certainly understandable.
> 
> But I am not willing to blame the parents here. They did not leave the dog run loose while the baby was on the floor and Whoops! the dog killed the baby while we were out back cooking a bbq.
> 
> ...


That is exactly what I meant Selzer. I agree 100% with you. A GSD, mix or not, could have killed a 2 week old on the spot. Many infants this age die every day from rolling off furniture, changing tables, out of swings, etc. It just doesn't grab the spotlight like "GSD bites baby". 

Being familiar with babies that age, and GSDs...since the baby died later at a hospital I have to believe it was either "oh look a new stuffie" or "I better get this baby to mom, it's crying" type thing. I mean, carrying the baby lovingly happens far less than happy accidental pouncing on and playing with the new baby too rough.

Again, all speculation. However it does bring to the topic the fact that possible aggression is only ONE reason not to leave dogs alone with the littles. There was a infamous case where a Golden strangled his beloved 5 year old little girl by her scarf playing. And one where a Dachshund chewed off the leg of a few days old infant. They could tip them out of a bouncy, sit on the to snuggle and suffocate them. 

And everyone is capable of forgetting a minor detail or turning their attention for that split second. Like with anything else..have a system, and have things in place that are safety nets in case your system momentarily fails. Crate the dog, and don't have an infant where they can meet the dog if the dog gets out.

If you look at dog related fatalities, a majority occur when visiting the home of a dog owner with a baby or child. So think ahead for that too, whether you are the one visiting or are the one expecting visitors.


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## BalkanBoy (Dec 3, 2015)

*Agreed but . . .*



car2ner said:


> I think Gooseman has the right idea in general. Better to have an over abundance of caution. While vets, insurance companies, dog trainers, humane societies, fanciers and lawyers are all trying to figure out the hows and whys of dog bites, we need to do what we can to manage the situation. Last statistic I read was that 98% of pet dogs never bite to hurt a human. This was in an article about the woman who was recently mauled by her two dogs while out on a walk. I don't know where they got that number from but figuring how many dogs are out there, 2 % is still many dogs.
> 
> These are terrible events that in hind sight, people often still don't understand how it could have happened.


Agreed but some people should be banned if you haven't proven yourself as a qualified handler.

Like this Pitbull owner I encountered. Love those dogs but I've seen way too many teenagers walking around with them.

One Pitbull (Fat strong monster of a Pitbull) even jumped on me. The owner simply shrugged it off with a little smirk "Sorry!". Like it was something funny?

Guy was in his early 20s top and had a typical metal spiky collar on his dog. These kind of people shouldn't be allowed to have any pets whatsoever.

Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2011.01961.x

Also if you look at the numbers, most Pitbulls are owned by people in their 20s or earlier. You don't need a math scientist to figure it out. Don't let people own strong dogs who are not qualified to own them. Period! If they have no previous history of dog ownership, no dogs for you.


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## KaiserAus (Dec 16, 2016)

I agree that we can't blame the parents here. Everyone is so quick these days to lay blame. 
There are not enough details to say anything for sure.
They were new parents, likely sleep deprived, perhaps the dog always sleeps in the kitchen, has never gotten out before, it never occurred to them that the dog might even try to get out... who knows.
It is an awful situation and we should try and feel more empathy towards the parents who now have to live with this awful tragedy. 
All accidents are preventable after the fact... hindsight is a wonderful thing.


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## newlie (Feb 12, 2013)

Terribly sad for all concerned. Particularly since we have so little information, I think it behooves us to be careful about assigning blame. Doubtless the parents of this baby are already devastated and guilt-ridden enough, after all they lost their child, and are going to have to live with that the rest of their lives.


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## slackoff01 (Apr 11, 2018)

BalkanBoy said:


> Don't let people own strong dogs who are not qualified to own them. Period! If they have no previous history of dog ownership, no dogs for you.




Who assesses qualification?

sounds like you are basing this on age / looks, how superficial of you.

and if they have no previous dog ownership, then no dogs for you. You realize that makes ownership impossible right?

[REMOVED BY MODERATOR]


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## slackoff01 (Apr 11, 2018)

slackoff01 said:


> Who assesses qualification?
> 
> sounds like you are basing this on age / looks, how superficial of you.
> 
> ...


mods, how about leaving the non pit remarks after said item(s) intact?.


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## Castlemaid (Jun 29, 2006)

The Moderator decision was appropriate for the content of the post in regards to Forum rules which also ban political discussions and references.

ADMIN


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## Thecowboysgirl (Nov 30, 2006)

I second the sentiment I won't look back and regret being too cautious. I had a dog who acted like a wolf. He knew how to hunt and kill all sorts of things with extreme skill and accuracy. He would kill an animal his own size.

When he met my nephew who was then a toddler, he wore a basket muzzle for awhile. I forget how long. Long enough I had seen the baby scream, squeal, run, etc etc and had a chance to observe the dog and there was nothing there. No gleam. No interest. He acted like it was a pup, and this dog was very good with dogs. He would even protect a dog being treated unfairly by another dog. But in a very fair way.

So that was one of those things that just must not happen. Can't happen in my life. My dog kills or badly mauls my sister's kid. The dog was never ever alone with the kid or out of my reach with the kid even after time. But he also wore the muzzle at first because I knew just how fast and lethal he could be, and I had no way of knowing whether a little kid would trigger it.

I do not regret for one second treating my dog like a velociraptor because....he sort of was and, the kid is 10 now and a ok.


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## Nurse Bishop (Nov 20, 2016)

I am not criticizing the heart broken parents but I wonder at the wisdom of leaving a new born baby on the floor. They should be in a crib when no one is right there. A baby was killed by a GSD near San Antonio last year, taken from a baby bouncer seat. Again, right in the dog's face. https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/City-San-Marcos-family-dog-kills-infant-10865454.php


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## slackoff01 (Apr 11, 2018)

Nurse Bishop said:


> I am not criticizing the heart broken parents but I wonder at the wisdom of leaving a new born baby on the floor. They should be in a crib when no one is right there. A baby was killed by a GSD near San Antonio last year, taken from a baby bouncer seat. Again, right in the dog's face. https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/City-San-Marcos-family-dog-kills-infant-10865454.php


Its ok to blame them, it was clearly their fault.

Does it make this less tragic, nope. 

Could it have been avoided, easily.


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## Mame (Mar 13, 2018)

slackoff01 said:


> Its ok to blame them, it was clearly their fault.
> 
> Could it have been avoided, easily.


1. Reducing this situation to the equivalency of a fender bender is ridiculous.

2. Good thing you're perfect.


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## slackoff01 (Apr 11, 2018)

Mame said:


> 1. Reducing this situation to the equivalency of a fender bender is ridiculous.
> 
> 2. Good thing you're perfect.


Not sure where you get that from, someone died. That is tragic, however there is blame as a life was lost. You dont have to agree thats fine and frankly I dont care if you dont see it my way.

Quote where I say I am perfect and I will retract my statement.

I am however responsible for what I do and what my dog does. That is the point here.

I have dogs and kids and would NEVER have allowed this to go down in my home. Careless parenting is what this was, certainly not intentional but that does not take away the fact that this was easily avoidable.

Go work in behavioral health for a while and then come talk to me about this, I see far too much carelessness / neglect with children to have any sympathy for these parents


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## dogma13 (Mar 8, 2014)

.............MODERATOR WARNING..........
Stop with the snarky comments.Differences in opinions are welcome but state your thoughts without the personal attacks.


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## Mame (Mar 13, 2018)

slackoff01 said:


> Go work in behavioral health for a while and then come talk to me about this


Non sequitur.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Castlemaid said:


> The Moderator decision was appropriate for the content of the post in regards to Forum rules which also ban political discussions and references.
> 
> ADMIN


Of course I did not see what was hacked away, but political discussions and references that have to do with dogs are allowed. I think sometimes we forget that.


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## Castlemaid (Jun 29, 2006)

^ No, nobody forgot anything, the removed content was not appropriate for this thread or any. But let's get back to the subject and leave editorial comments about the board out of it.


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## selzer (May 7, 2005)

Of course this happened 6 months ago or so, and when we keep bringing it up, it makes it look like babies are being killed left and right. Maybe it is best to shut the thread down at this point, because it actually does give an erroneous impression.


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