A young girl died after getting bit by a dog owned by a family friend, authorities said.
The girl, 15 months old, was at a house in Henderson, Nevada, on April 27 when she was bitten by a dog, according to the Henderson Police Department.
The girl was rushed to a nearby hospital but was pronounced dead.
The dog, a 4-year-old Rottweiler, was taken by Animal Control officers and euthanized “per the owner’s request,” the police department stated.
The homeowner, who declined to be named publicly, told Fox 5 that the girl who died was his granddaughter.
He said that family members were at home when she was bitten and don’t know what happened.
A baby girl was killed by a Rottweiler in a Henderson home today. @FOX5_Tiana spoke with the girl’s grandfather and their neighbor.
Read more: https://t.co/VqG24QKM5s pic.twitter.com/mjuZgsre2T
— FOX5 Las Vegas (@FOX5Vegas) April 28, 2019
Michael Seed, a neighbor, said that he had seen the dog before.
“It’s never really been aggressive,” Seed said about the Rottweiler. “I’ve never heard it bark. It’s been there numerous times.”
The attack came about a week after a North Las Vegas family’s dog was attacked by a neighbor’s Siberian husky.
Davena Davis said that she was returning from a trip to a park with her two daughters, ages 3 and 6, when she turned around and saw the dog.
She rushed her children inside her house but saw the dog pick up her dog. She and her father chucked rocks and a house fan at the husky but nothing worked.
“I’ve seen my fair share of dogs and I’ve never seen a dog act like that,” Davis told KTNV. A neighbor finally wrangled the husky and returned it to the owner of the dog, who had tried to intervene but disappeared when the intervention failed.
Animal Control officers took the dog and placed it in a 10-day quarantine.
“The dog is quarantined currently at the shelter, and police and animal control are looking at all the facts and circumstances of this case to make sure it is handled appropriately moving forward,” said Delen Goldberg with the city of North Las Vegas.
Heartbreak in North Las Vegas for one family after their dog is mauled to death by a neighbor’s #SiberianHusky
Their urgent warning about what happened and when authorities could return the dog to the neighborhood LIVE at 11 on @KTNV pic.twitter.com/pKGIKql0r6— Joe Bartels (@Joe_Bartels) April 24, 2019
Dog Bites
About 1,000 U.S. citizens require emergency care treatment for serious dog bite injuries on a daily basis, according to Dogsbite.org. Annually, about 9,500 citizens are hospitalized due to dog bite injuries.
In a 13-year analysis, the website says that of the 433 fatal dog attacks in the United States, pit bulls contributed to 66 percent or 284 deaths. Rottweilers, the second on the list, inflicted 10 percent of attacks that resulted in human death, the report says. German shepherds accounted for 4.6 percent of fatal attacks. Mixed-breed dogs accounted for 3.9 percent and the American bulldog was next at 3.5 percent, the report said. Mastiffs and Bullmastiffs accounted for 3.2 percent of deaths. Last on the list were huskies, which accounted for 3 percent of fatal attacks.
The report compiled fatal dog attacks between 2005 and 2017, showing that 48 percent of the victims were children aged 9 or younger.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, children are more likely than adults to be bitten by a dog and when they are, the injuries can be more severe. Over half of dog bite injuries occur at home with dogs that are families with their victims.
“As the number of dogs in the home increases, so does the likelihood of being bitten. Adults with two or more dogs in the household are five times more likely to be bitten than those living without dogs at home,” the agency stated. “Among adults, men are more likely than women to be bitten by a dog.”
