Boy 10 mauled to death at holiday park

[Witchofzog]

I can't link on this phone but it is on most news sites. The owner was found off site after a police hunt so possibly fled when she knew her dog had killed a child. It's just awful - a young boy probably just going to the loo in the middle of the night on a campsite having his life ended because of a dangerous dog and an owner who can't control and/ or keep it securely away

it's so tragic and horrible, felt sick reading it, it's is odd he was left til 5am alone, I'm. assuming they thought he'd be safe with the dog??

I think the parents have suffered the worst punishment though, I don't think the knife needs digging in.

I can’t stop thinking about this poor boy and what he must have gone through. We’ve stopped at that holiday park lots of times.

staydazzling that’s not how it works, people who neglect their children don’t escape punishment because the child dies

@staydazzling
By your standard if a child dies no responsibility is to be taken by the parents who put them in danger?
The McCanns had no sympathy for leaving a child alone so why are these parents excused?

Being frightened by what’s occurred isn’t any excuse for doing a runner from the scene of a crime though. The owner was caught on a train with the dog hours later?!

at what point did I no responsibility should be taken? stop twisting my words I said let's not dig the knife in, justice will run its course, doesnt need to be a pile on,

I imagine they thought the dog would protect him, of course they never thought the dog would attack him

Talk about speculation!
As yet, everything being reported is mainly guesswork. The facts as I understand it are that the child was in a caravan with a dog. The child was mauled. The dog and owner were found away from the caravan some hours later.
We do not, as yet, know that the child had been alone with the dog all night, what type of dog it was, where the parents were, or why the dog attacked the child.

@horace
We won't know the circumstances, dogs very rarely attack unprovoked, dog could be ill, child could have goaded it, but as they were alone we can't know.

I am appalled by the people on here who are trying to let the dog and the owner off the hook for a child’s death.

As the owner of the dog she is responsible for putting the dog in the position where it could harm someone. Just as the parents were foolish to trust a dog they have not trained with their child.

People are stupid over their dogs. They are not children. They are animals. Treating them as children and family members blurs the line and creates situations in which both dogs and children are put in danger.

I would never leave my child unsupervised with someone else’s dog- even my mother’s silly Pomeranian.

The owner of the dog, left the site with her dog. Both blood stained.

At the train station she was crying. A teenager gave her money for her fare after telling her she had been a victim of dv. The women is despicable!!!!

@belle
It's not letting them off the hook but in these cases hysteria takes over and people fail to look at the bigger picture. I doubt the owner thought her dog could do this or they wouldn't have left the dog; we do not know the circumstances of the attack. The child and the dog were let down by those meant to be responsible.

@Bookworm4

That is the problem. People see their dogs as children and not as domesticated animals. Any owner who assumes their dog could never hurt someone (intentionally or unintentionally) is a danger to others.

Some people should not be allowed to own dogs for the safety of the dog and everyone else.

Suggesting that the child that was mauled to death was somehow responsible for their own death is disgusting.

So @belle you think every person bitten by a dog was minding their own business and this wild animal just randomly bit them? You're the one being ridiculous, 20 yrs ago if a dog bit you you were asked what did you do to dog but now nobody takes responsibility. No a dog shouldn't attack but also if a dog is goaded, abused it could retaliate, why are dogs expected to be endlessly tolerant?
This case and the one of the baby are down to human error.

@Bookworm4

That isn’t what I said. I said that dogs and victims are let down by irresponsible owners who treat their dogs as human beings rather than domesticated pets.

Trying to blame all victims of dog attack for their attack is disgraceful. I was attacked as a child by a neighbour’s dog who escaped from their garden. All I did was walk past their house at the wrong time.

People who keep untrained, dangerous animals should be prosecuted. People who allow their animals to harm others should be prosecuted.

Animals are not people.

I got bitten by a dog on the street too. I didn't even see it. Just felt its teeth.

@Bookworm4 and how do you ask a little boy who’s died “what he did” to upset the dog? Really insensitive stance when a child is dead.

@haz
I've said several times that we won't ever know the circumstances.

Running away with your dog because it has just killed a child strikes me that your first concern is panicking as you dont want the dog destroyed. I love our dogs but would have no qualms about them being destroyed if they attacked someone like this.

My dd was bitten by a dog. She asked the owner if it was ok to stroke and it grabbed her. He laughed and said it doesn't like you does it then walked off. Luckily there were witnesses and he was found. If there hadn't have been people would probably assume she provoked it.

Bbc news yesterday said he was 9. I cant understand why you would leave a 9 yo (or 10 yo for that matter) on their own in a caravan overnight? Maybe they thought he was safer with a (guard) dog? Its heartbreaking to think that not only was he attacked but there was no one inside to hear/help him immediately. It said in one news report members of the public went to help.

Simply put the child should not have been left alone at 5am. That’s a mistake the parents will have to live with. Secondly, the dog may have been provoked, even by something as simple as the boy falling over it in a darkened caravan on his way to the bathroom. We will never know what happened because the only person who could tell us has tragically passed away. All we can hope for is that lessons are learned, there have been too many reports of dog attacks on children recently and I wonder if that is poor parenting or irresponsible dog ownership.

@Angela
I think it's a combination of poor parenting and poor ownership. I work in animal rescue and have seen the real change in attitude towards pets. On one hand you have really on the ball owners who train with their dogs, then you have those who expect a dog to just know how to behave, also a large section of society is completely ignorant to a dogs body language and signs of stress, most importantly we need to teach kids respect for animals; it's not cute for the toddler to pull and poke at the dog or sit them in the dogs bed/crate. There definitely seems to have been a backward step in awareness and attitudes.

Reports that the dog was often muzzled after being involved in four previous attacks. From the picture, it looks like a pitbull/american bulldog type.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/8863348/schoolboy-savaged-to-death-by-devil-dog-4-previous-attacks/