I’d think that it was any other orifice, there would have been no reason for the mom to mention that she’d taken the diaper off the child. According to a witness, the dog ran outside with the boy still attached to him, and one of the neighbors made the 911 call. This is a local story, so I have a little bit more information from watching the nightly news.
Oh great, more fuel for the anti-pit bull fire, not only are they vicious killers but now they are child rapists as well. :rolleyes:
It is unfortunate that a child was injured, hopefully he will get the proper treatment for all his injuries. But I, too, find the whole scenario a bit suspicious, like leaving the room to throw out a diaper. Every mother I have ever seen change their baby changes the kid, puts a new diaper on and then picks up the kid, throwing the diaper away last. Heck, if they’re in public many of them never even bother to throw away the used diaper. But then when the dog “attacked” there was suddenly an entire family there to beat the dog off (no pun intended).
Intact male dogs are hornier than teenage boys. They’ll hump anything that does or doesn’t move. Then you throw in the factor that two is the right age for a dog wanting to move up in the pack which means they will pull dominance moves (such as humping) on younger members of the pack. Unfortunately, as someone above mentioned this all came to pass and the the dog scored a hit on an available orifice. But there was no intention of sexual assault on the dog’s part, he’s a dog and he was doing what dogs will do.
When you take responsibility for a pet you should be aware that they are not little humans, they are animals. Don’t put them in situations where their animal brain will take over and cause unwanted behavior. Train them but never trust them alone with small children and get them fixed. This could have been prevented, along with the possibility of dominance aggression, by getting the dog neutered.
I think most dog owners have seen this kind of behaviour. Dogs get excited and mount things. My best guess is the dog got a ‘lucky hit’ (Using that term in the broadest sence.)
I mentioned that I’ve seen dogs do the hip thrust on a person or object (that was the dominance mount thing from the op), but I’ve never seen one bring its penis out of the sheath while doing that.
I agree that the mom wasn’t thinking. She shouldn’t have left the toddler alone with the dog whether he was clothed or not. Anyone should know that’s a recipe for a dog bite.
The first thing this made me think of was our intact (at the time) male shar-pei. We were at a family gathering and several of my 8-10yr old male cousins were playing with the dog. They started rough-housing. They were laughing about the dog “trying to tackle” them. What they didn’t realize was the dog was aroused and trying to mount them.
We broke that up pretty quickly.
You would only hope. But there are oodles of cases were a family has a dog that bites a visitor, and are genuinely surprised, because they had not seen that behavior before.
“Fifi was always gentle with the kids…”
One of the links in the Wikipedia article is to a site that says that the male dog (Bane) became aroused at hearing the growling of the female dog (Hera) down the hall; he then lunged toward it, the owner lost control, and when Bane reached Whipple he attacked her. I took that to mean that at least according to that site (which doesn’t make it true), that Bane transferred his sexual aggression that he originally had for Hera into just plain old aggressive toward Whipple.
Now how the author of that site knows that Bane was aroused at Hera, I don’t know. Maybe it says but I didn’t read the whole thing. It doesn’t appear the author was present at the time.
Edit: also, the word “aroused” doesn’t always have to do with sex. Perhaps the author should have chosen a different way to say “excited.” Well see that has the same problem. Hmmm.
From Here (just the first hit that had the details in view, it applies to all breeds AFAIK)
I’d imagine a Pit Bull would be similarly equipped to a Lab, the toddler may have been locked up with the Pit. The dog can’t just relax this bulb when people start yelling, it’s the same thing if you try to separate two copulating dogs. Sometimes they get locked up and you can injure them if you try to break them up.
The article said the boy suffered no bites, so I bet being dragged around by the asshole was what caused his injuries.
The dog owners didn’t have the dog neutered, and now want it destroyed because it did what intact dogs do.
Junior will have some stories to tell someday.
I think “aroused” may not have necessarily have been in the sexual context, I think it was meant in the sense (from Dictionary.com)
“1. to stir to action or strong response; excite: to arouse a crowd; to arouse suspicion.”
The owner had testified the big dog was sick with diarrhea and she was taking it to the roof to defecate. So he was a mean mofo who was sick and in a really bad mood, and when his girl-dog got all growly he went after the “intruder”.
Well, based off of having dogs mating in my front yard, I’d think that the injuries were the result of trying to remove the animal, but maybe not from beating the dog. I don’t know if it would be physically possible if the other subject is a human, but if you try chasing off two dogs mating, they will run away still attached to one another.
I was loathe to attempt to research this, scared of what I might find, but Wiki’s article on canine reproduction backs me up at least.
If the child was “tied” to the dog in the same way a female dog might get attached to her mate, then his injuries might have been largely due to removing him forcibly from the dog.
(bolding mine)
This was just a horrible thing to happen to the child but it was essentially an accident with no malicious intent by the dog. I can understand why the parents would be angry and not want the dog but this was not aggression and could have been prevented, the dog doesn’t deserve to die for it.
I still can’t help but wonder if this story wouldn’t be a nice shocker to show people who refuse to neuter their pets. “Okay, so you don’t believe me when I tell you it will reduce the possibility of aggression or wandering, then how about preventing him from raping your children!”
You haven’t seen enough dogs.
I’ve been playing the floor with dogs, and had dogs try to mount. They’ll try it from the front, the side, and the rear. . .whichever end they’re facing when they get aroused.
And, dogs have a way of “grabbing” with their front legs to almost lock on. Given that a child way laying there naked and unattended, it doesn’t surprise that this kind of assault happened at all. I’d be really surprised if it was the first recorded case.
My pit bull is fixed so he rarely humps but when he does, he grabs on really, really hard with his front legs. It is difficult for me to get away, and I am twice his weight and pretty strong and not scared of him at all. I can easily see how he could do serious damage to a (small, weak, frightened) child with no penetration whatsoever.
In fact this is the only situation in which I’d ever be worried about him hurting someone. He is gentle as can be with children, and has never shown aggression towards anyone (except the creature that has taken up residence in my shed), but his enthusiastic amorous advances could be really dangerous. For this reason alone I would never leave him alone with a child. It only takes a second for him to feel the love and grab on.
This was a two-year old, though, not an infant. I confess that I’ve briefly left older babies and toddlers alone during a diaper changing if I needed to find wipes or another package of diapers or something. It’s really not that suspicious. Absent any actual evidence of malice or abuse, I see know need to add to this family’s trauma by insinuating that it was anything deliberate.
/dons tin foil hat:
Interesting that you should mentions this, here in California they are/were considering mandatory neutering laws: North County
/puts away hat
From Op’s link:
It sounds like this director of the SPCA doesn’t know as much about dogs as some of the dopers around here… am I being unfair?
How big is a dog’s penis?
You’re probably right. Thank God he’s a child now and can be helped in dealing with this.
I’m not sure how much national attention it received but a local boy here was sodomized with a pole by “friends” at a party. He barely lived, had multiple surgeries, but did recover. Part of his recovery was of course learning to deal with the emotional trauma of the event, beyond that of the brave face he continued to exhibit. Those responsible are spending the rest of their lives behind bars. A couple of weeks ago, the boy went on a cruise ship vacation with friends to Cancun. En route, he stood on the deck, climbed over the rail and jumped to his death.
There was a little girl we heard of recently. While sitting in a shallow wading pool, the drain, due to a defective cover, pulled all her small intestines out of her bottom. Somehow, doctors were able to save her life, although she’ll always have to deal with nutritional and bowel issues in ways to uncomfortable and unjust to imagine. Know what she said to her parents? “Will I be on TV?” “Honey, why do you ask?” “I think I need to be on TV so others can learn from this, so it won’t happen to anyone else.” My wife an I both teared up listening to her. Her attitude, concern and resolve, truly amazing in one so young, were endearing beyond belief.
This little boy is going to have to figure out how to deal with this someday. He’ll probably do so in a manner somewhere between the two just mentioned. I sincerely hope that starting right now and for as long as he needs it that someone, be it parents, counselors, CPS or whoever, doesn’t drop the ball. Thank goodness he’s young. May he get whatever’s needed.
Agreed. Unless there is proof the dog did it, other than biased witness testimony, I think it sounds dubious.
<<One neighbor said, “You hear about dogs attacking children in horror films, but as far as in this community, it’s never happened.”>>
As far as I know, even horror films don’t show that kind of attack.