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The dog that killed the baby girl in Daventry confirmed as illegal American pit bull

The dog that killed a six-month-old girl in Northamptonshire was an illegal American pit bull, say police.

The baby, who has not been named, was attacked at a property in Morning Star Road, Daventry, last Friday and was pronounced dead at hospital.

Her grandmother, who was caring for her, was injured trying to protect her.

A serious case review committee is to meet next month to consider if Northamptonshire's Safeguarding Children Board should investigate.
...[snip]...
The dog was destroyed by vets at the scene and its breed was confirmed at a post-mortem carried out at the Royal Veterinary College.

"The dog was an American pit bull, a prohibited breed under the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act," Chief Inspector Tom Thompson said.

Northamptonshire Police said they had drawn on national expertise in the area of dangerous dogs in its investigation.
Full article here...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-29571237

RIP baby girl - killed so tragically by an illegal breed.

Your comments and views:
Lacey10
Dogsey Veteran
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 19,204
Female 
 
10-10-2014, 03:22 PM
RIP,sweet angel.My heart goes out to the family of that poor wee baby.
I have a question,not pointing a finger at anyone except the owner of course.Dog shouldn't have been there,end of.I'm wondering about the "very experienced officer" who investigated the noise disturbance and put the equipment in to check the level of it.Maybe at that time there were two different dogs in the house and I'm just assuming the illegal dog was present then.But my question is this,two questions really,would the officer,not been able to tell that this dog was a banned breed or is it a really difficult thing to prove?Forgive my ignorance on the subject,I have no idea.Am curious is all.
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Othala
Dogsey Junior
Joined: Oct 2014
Posts: 23
Female 
 
10-10-2014, 04:27 PM
That's a shame, and my heart goes out to the family.

Having grown up with APBs I can tell you that it is not hard to spot one. They have extremely distinct features. Even people with no knowledge of bone structure or breeds can pick a pit out of a crowd.

It breaks my heart to see things like this, because when they're socialized they are such sweet animals. However, they're constantly bed as fight dogs and get a bad rep for it as a breed. They can become very territorial, so socializing is so important.

My sister owns two APBs and they're the biggest babies ever.
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lovemybull
Dogsey Senior
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 974
Female 
 
10-10-2014, 04:50 PM
It's headlines like this that make steam come out of my ears. A baby was killed by one of those hideous, crazy, American pits, it all makes sense now...

Sorry to say that any dog larger than say 40 lbs could maul a human infant to death if so motivated, regardless of breed or country of origin.

There is a negligent human somewhere in this picture. Why was this child unsupervised?

And I'm sorry to say that no...often you can't pick the pit out of the crowd...there are Dogo's, Presarios, Cane Corsos, and mixes of all descriptions that have blocky heads and shoulders and they are not "pit bulls" they are mastiffs, even DNA testing can't ID 100%...which demonstrates the futility of breed ban laws.
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Othala
Dogsey Junior
Joined: Oct 2014
Posts: 23
Female 
 
10-10-2014, 05:02 PM
Just had to Google Dogos and they do look similar. Off topic question, but do we have them in the states? I've never even heard of them.

Edit: Nevermind, ran a search and we do. Must just not been popular around me.
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lovemybull
Dogsey Senior
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 974
Female 
 
10-10-2014, 05:13 PM
Yup, gorgeous dogs...the one who lives next door is 100lbs. He looks like Callie but dwarfs him in size.
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Malka
Dogsey Veteran
Joined: Apr 2011
Posts: 18,088
Female  Diamond Supporter 
 
10-10-2014, 06:14 PM
lovemybull - no headlines have said that the baby was killed by "one of those hideous, crazy, American pits" - but as that breed is one of the banned breeds according to the Dangerous Dogs Act, the fact is that the dog was illegally owned.

In the UK, it’s against the law to own certain types of dog. These are the:

Pit Bull Terrier
Japanese Tosa
Dogo Argentino
Fila Braziliero

It’s also against the law to:

sell
abandon
give away
breed from

a banned dog.
https://www.gov.uk/control-dog-public/banned-dogs
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Lacey10
Dogsey Veteran
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 19,204
Female 
 
10-10-2014, 06:41 PM
Mail online is reporting it as such Lovemybull.
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Baxter8
Dogsey Senior
Joined: Apr 2012
Posts: 969
Female 
 
10-10-2014, 07:48 PM
Lacey10 - good point about the police officer, you would think he/she would think "this looks a bit like a banned breed". Trouble is pitbulls are actually really quite difficult to identify and it seems to me to be a terribly hit and miss affair and consists mainly of taking measurements with a tape measure - yep that scientific. Clearly the DNA tests were more sophisticated. It is possible that the owner didn't know they had a banned breed.

I have a staffie myself-but quite long legged. I was lucky to meet a police breed identifier at a conference who said he was willing to take a look at my dog. I sent him a whole series of pictures and he kept asking for more and more ... and after some time concluded that mine didn't have pitbull and as I say he was a breed identifier and it took several pictures to come to that conclusion. It doesn't seem to be that easy even by experts.

This baby and dog were not adequately supervised. As I've pointed out before it is possible that the dog had never come into contact with a small child or baby, the movements, smells and sounds could have been enough to trigger him - but for goodness sake why wasn't he in another room.
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Malka
Dogsey Veteran
Joined: Apr 2011
Posts: 18,088
Female  Diamond Supporter 
 
10-10-2014, 08:33 PM
Even small dogs can kill a baby. In November 2012 a Jack Russell cross killed an eight-day-old baby with a single bite.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...sy-attack.html

But Jack Russells and their crosses are not banned dogs under the Dangerous Dogs Act - American Pit bulls are, therefore the dog involved in this latest tragedy was owned illegally.
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