 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Pet dog attacks playful toddler
By AARON SHAROCKMAN, Times Staff Writer LARGO -- Thirteen-month-old Gabriel Ryan-Leon is frantically learning to walk. He is an active kid who neighbors said loved to play with his grandmother's pit bullterrier, Rex. He often spent the day there while his mother worked. He would wrestle Rex to the ground and play with his favorite toy, a black rope which resembles Gabriel's curly dark hair, neighbors said. The two were buddies, though Rex drastically outweighs Gabriel. Rex played rough Tuesday, and Gabriel was bitten. Gabriel suffered bite marks on his leg and at the back of his head. He was taken to All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, where he was listed as a regular admittance to the emergency room. Fire officials at the scene said the injuries were minor. "If he goes and put his head to the floor, it's no different than that stuffed rag to the dog," said neighbor Jim McKay, who watches Rex when the grandmother, Diane Ryan, is on vacation. "He's going to go and grab it. He's not a bad dog. This isn't another pit bull attacking someone." McKay said Rex also greets schoolchildren at the bus stop and is the neighborhood's unofficial pet. But Tuesday afternoon, blood remained on the white Toyota Camry in the driveway and the concrete below. McKay said blood was everywhere inside the yellow one-story house. He entered when paramedics arrived, to see if he could help. Ryan's shorts were covered in blood when McKay entered the house shortly after firefighters arrived, he said. "There was a line of blood from the corner of the room where Rex bit (Gabriel) straight through to the front door," McKay said. "It might not have been much, but it looked like a lot." Ryan was in the computer room at the rear of the house when she heard Rex growl from the living room, McKay said. She rushed into the room to find Gabriel bitten and bleeding from the head. The dog's bite ranged from the baby's ear toward the top of the head, police said. Ryan grabbed Gabriel and ran for the front door, Rex followed, jumped and bit Gabriel again, in the back of the leg. "The grandmother did the right thing by getting the child out as quickly as possible," Largo police spokesman Brandon Graham said. Once outside her home along 16th Avenue NW in Largo, Ryan tripped and fell between two parked cars, McKay said. She bruised her knees, he said. "That dog is taught to chase, that's what dogs do," McKay said. "Of course, he's going to run after them." Rex paced and panted in a light blue Dodge caravan parked next to the Camry while fire and police officials waited for the county animal control officer to arrive. When John Roberson came to take him away, Rex fought with the leash and yelped before jumping into the truck, where he'll start a 10-day quarantine, Roberson said. If the dog's is not infected with rabies, he can return to Ryan's care, if she chooses. If she does not want him back, county animal control will euthanize Rex. "We don't adopt out pets with a biting history," Roberson said. The neon orange "Beware of the Dog" sign placed in the living room window welcoming visitors to Ryan's home is almost a joke, McKay and other neighbors say. "Rex wouldn't intentionally hurt anyone," McKay said. But Rex is a dog. And intentional or not, McKay knows what Rex is capable of. "Whenever I play with him, he'll draw blood," McKay said. "But he doesn't mean to do it."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times North Pinellas desks Editorial Letters |
