Originally posted by vraiblonde
I've only been bitten by one dog in my life and (you guessed it) it was a dachsund. My ex-wife has two of them and they're skitty little things.
I'm usually the first one to point a finger at irresponsible parents but I don't think the mother was negligent in this case. I think it's reasonable to let a 6 week old baby nap unattended in a playpen with a monitor. You can't stand over them 24/7 so the monitor seems reasonable. They're not mobile enough to crawl out of the playpen, so that seems reasonable too. The only thing you can really say was stupid was letting the dog be around the child unattended. But people do it all the time - "My dog is really gentle - would never hurt a fly!"
All dogs are wonderful and gentle - until they go crazy and injure someone.
I have to agree with you on this one. I don't think the behavior of the parent was unreasonable at all. I mean, the baby was napping with a monitor, and it probably didn't take all that long for the dog to chew a hole in the side of the pen (quietly). So, even if the parent was going in to check on the child every 15-20 minutes the dog could have easily gotten into the pen within that timeframe. To me, the door should have been shut enough so that the animal couldn't get into the same room as the child, but that's pretty obvious, ya know.
While I LOVE dogs, not all like me! I was seriously attacked when I was 17 years old by a german shephard mix. It bit through my cheek with it's eye teeth, and tore some pretty bad gashes into my outer thigh. I had to have surgery on my cheek, but today all you can see is 2 tiny marks that are very slightly indented - and you can't see a trace of a scar on my thigh. My friend and I were getting out of my car at her boyfriend's house, and I asked her if the dogs were nice - she said "Oh yeah, they're great"! HAH! No sooner did I get out of the car was the dog ripping at my clothes and pushing me onto the hood of the car. To make matters worse, research proved that the dog hadn't been vaccinated in several years, so I had to go through the whole rabies shot saga. We ended up suing due to the horrible behavior of the owners, who swore up and down the dog had been vaccinated and gave me a dish towel and told me to go on my merry way - wouldn't even let me use the phone to call my mom! She just kept saying "You'll be finnnnnnnneee, now go on home"! The police met me at the hospital, and we filed the report from there. It was something. And then, no sooner than 3 years later, some other small dog at a friendly gathering bit the living crap out of my lip! No luck, hehe!
for the job you do. My neighbors are fire/rescue in Montgomery County and they tell me the most horrific stories. I'm sure you see a lot of the same. Anyway, I sure appreciate people like you who are willing to do that sort of thing!
But you have to wonder about the circumstances. I never used a baby moniter, a physical check on a sleeping infant (to make sure they haven't vomited or smothered themselves) is better than waiting for them to cry. And never leave an unattended child where a dog is, no matter how friendly it is, you just never know.
