A baby boy under the care of a babysitter was killed by her three large dogs in Duncanville, Texas.
Babysitter's Dogs Kill Infant
Duncanville, TX - A 1-year old boy is dead after being attacked by three large dogs while under the care of a babysitter, police said. Officers were dispatched to a residence in the 1500 block on Lime Leaf Lane about 10:40 am for a report of a dog attack. The child was unconscious when officers arrived. He was rushed to Children's Medical Center in Dallas, where he died. Police described the dogs as "shepherd-mixes," weighing about 80 pounds each. The homeowner owns the dogs.
All three dogs were involved in the attack, police said. The dogs were confined to the property. "The dogs were not running loose," Duncanville Interim Police Chief Matthew Stogner said during the press conference. "The dogs were outside. 'Somehow' they made their way back inside the house" and attacked the baby. The dog's owner tried to free the boy from the dogs but was unable to. Neighbors said the woman who owns the home and dogs has been babysitting for family friends for years.
"The dogs were confined in the house. They were not loose. The resident at the location attempted to pull the dogs from the infant. Unsuccessfully. Until the officers got there. At which point she sustained some injuries as well. This is certainly a tragedy. Our fire personnel and police personnel worked very hard to try to save this child." - Duncanville Interim Police Chief Matthew Stogner
During the press conference, Stogner would not answer whether the home on Lime Leaf Lane was operating as a daycare. David Trout, a neighbor, told NBC 5 that he has a connection to the dog's owner; his brother used to be married to her. "She jumped in between and tried to, I guess, tear them apart," Trout said. Trout appeared shaken by the attack. "She’s a sweetheart, she means well, she’s taken care of kids down there forever without any kind of problems," Trout said. "I just hate it for her."
Stogner was asked during the press conference, "Any other incidents been there before?" Stogner answered, "No sir. Not involving the animals."
The baby, identified as Shiraz Asirvadam, did not live at the home. The relationship between the baby and the babysitter is unclear. Three other children were in the home when the dogs attacked, but they were unharmed. The babysitter was the only adult in the home, police said. Criminal charges are possible, authorities said. Police are working with the Dallas County District Attorney's Office and the family of the deceased baby to "figure out our best course of action moving forward," Stogner said.
On Tuesday, new details about the dogs emerged. One was male, weighing about 100 pounds and two were female, weighing about 80 pounds each. "The three dogs are now in quarantine pending surrender by the owner. If the owner does not surrender the dogs, the Duncanville Police Department will file with the court to have the animals declared Dangerous Dogs. The dogs will remain in quarantine pending the owner’s or a court’s final decision," Duncanville Police said in a statement.
"There were four children on the premises at the time of the incident. Only one child, who was not a resident of the household, was attacked.
Due to the severity of the injuries, Duncanville police officers provided an emergency escort while the child was being transported to Children’s Medical Center in Dallas by Duncanville Medics. Unfortunately, the child was pronounced deceased shortly after arriving at the hospital.
The homeowner owned four dogs. Three dogs were involved in the incident, one a male weighing approximately 100 lbs. and two females weighing approximately 80 lbs. each. Duncanville Animal Control has identified the three dogs as Sheppard mixes." - Vicious Animal Call Follow-Up, Duncanville Police, April 16, 2024
The home on Lime Leaf Lane where a baby boy was killed by his babysitter's three large dogs.
Related articles:
07/10/22: 2022 Dog Bite Fatality: 4-Year Old Girl Killed by Dog in Southeast Dallas Neighborhood
Law enforcement departments across the United States should release consistent "baseline" information to the media and the public after each fatal dog mauling, including these items.
Shepherd mixed with what, I wonder. 80 pounds. I can hazard a guess.
Shades of the Dax Borchardt case. Another infant killed at the babysitter’s house.
“Shepherd mixes”
Uh huh….let’s see photos because I’m guessing they look just like pitbulls.
Pics of these “shepherd mixes” will prob never be obtained- there’s a reason for that!
Poor baby died because his parents didn’t do a background check.you shouldn’t trust your baby to someone who own a big dangerous dogs whether it’s pitbull gs huskies.there was a story a while back where a dad trust his son to a babysitter who own pitbull and it killed the baby I think his named was daxson .the baby be still alive if she give him to a babysitter who owns cats.
Yea, we all know what the other Breed Mix is.
Smfh
It appears the babysitter/homeowner/dog owner was running an unregistered (illegal) daycare from her home. The state does not have a listing for a licensed day care at her address.
Four children present. One article said they were her children, but the owner, Marilyn Trout, is nearly 60 – doubtful. I am sure this is all part of the police investigation.
Yes, I would like to see a picture of the dogs. Strange it was not caught on camera as the dogs were taken out. Usually a news crew catches a picture. There were 4 dogs in the home. 3 were involved in the attack.
Another tragic, preventable loss.
By the way, over a billion dollars in losses recorded by insurance companies in the US for dog bite injuries last year. 35% of losses on homeowner insurance is from this one cause. If homeowner companies are starting to drop people for living in hurricane regions, flood zones, fire areas, dropping people for dangerous dogs has got to be close behind.
My daughter lived in an apartment and paid for a DNA test on her dog. She had to go into the office for the staff to take the oral swab. I hope this will become more universal.
Doesn’t matter about the parents IMO, in this case.
Because we don’t know why they left their child there. Perhaps this babysitter was the only one around they could afford. Should they have chosen better? I don’t know. They certainly paid more than the price for their lack of judgement.
I still want to know what those GSDs were mixed *with*. Not that a pack of GSDs can’t go feral or wild, just that they are less likely to, than dogs mixed with pitbull.
The other question for me is…how did the dogs get *to* the child?
I got “page not found” for that Facebook link to her husband.
A confirmed case where all three dogs were involved, how horrible. There’s no way that these dog were calm and stable family pets prior to this attack.
Four dogs seems like too many to live together in one home, in my opinion.
I’d agree. I have two, and that’s my limit. I think if you have over three you’re really pushing it. I wouldn’t want to try to handle a third, personally. With two, I can give equal attention and am able to control them well, we go out in public with them on a leash together, it just works (they are also Frenchies, so small and not aggressive). People get a little nuts thinking they can handle a pack, and it almost never works out well. You end up neglecting them for lack of time and energy, they feed off each other’s bad behavior… it’s just a bad idea.
I’ve had up to five, with board and trains and fosters
That said, board and trains aren’t loose dogs running around in your house, unsupervised. They’re crated unless they are working or supervised, playing/exercising.
More than one foster in one’s stable pack (2 trained dogs are plenty) is a bad idea because you want more *trained* dogs than untrained dogs in a group. Dogs learn from each other and what they learn, isn’t always the behaviour you want and must be stopped post haste.
I try to stress that if the first dog is not trained to a high degree, do not bring another one home just to “keep it company” or to resolve behavioural problems like barking. With two trained dogs, a third foster isn’t likely to cause a problem unless it’s unstable or exhibits bad behaviours.
It’s difficult to walk even two dogs at a time and it takes a fair degree of skill. (most people do this absolutely wrong by walking one dog per hand–leaving no free hand should something untoward, occur) This means that anyone with three or more dogs is not walking their dogs in most cases. Training takes an hour a day per dog or more until the dog is proficient.
Of course, one pitbull is one too many due to their high degree of dog and human aggression.
Five untrained or poorly trained dogs together is a disaster waiting to happen.
When it comes to determining how many dogs to own, I’ve found that “zero” is the ideal target number.
I’m in agreement with Todd. I like having a clean, quiet house.
I agree.
Even with owning zero dogs I have to clean their waste out of my yard and hear their constant barking.
More often than not I can see an owner yelling at a pit that is ignoring them if I look outside.
When I go to either of the local farm stores I hear the “click, click. click” of untrimmed pit claws on the tile.
I don’t understand why you need your pit with you to look at tools, implements, tractor parts, tires or ammo but a shocking number of people can not make a purchase without their pit there to approve.
By approve I mean ignore the owner and strain at the end of a retractable leash.
There was a big hubbub in the news lately where someone owned a Serval and it escaped.
Animal control made a show out of catching it and not returning to the owner. Lawmakers have rushed to the capitol to ban private ownership of servals.
Keep in mind the escaped serval harmed exactly zero people or other pets.
My state consistently is in the top ten for deaths related to pits.
Lawmakers bend over backwards for the pit lobby even letting Leddy Van Kavage write the state’s laws regarding BSL.
One serval is apparently cause for alarm yet you can have a half dozen pits in your back yard and no one cares until they “somehow get out”.
I am not saying keeping servals for pets is a good idea, yet if all the pits in my state were to be transformed in to servals overnight I suspect the number of maulings would drop.
Particularly enraging while serval-gate was going on the local news covering that story was constantly pushing pits as their “pet of the week”.
An animal that has as far as I know never killed a person is way too dangerous, why don’t you take home the number one killer of people, kids and the elderly in particular.
However much you hate the media industrial complex, it isn’t enough.
Appreciate the 2nd and 3rding.
Although as of late I haven’t wrapped my head with a lengthy manuscript, I plan to once I settle upon the right magnification of readers to make me comfortable.
One thing that will NOT make me comfortable is to have a whining hound seeking attention every five minutes {or less}.
Nope. I can’t concentrate like that.
Don’t want one.
Zero works for me too Todd!
I would be too lonesome without any dogs, and my Service Dog is retired due to medical problems. Thus, I get to train another dog which won’t be easy for me.
I find it interesting that the police can call the dogs shepherd mixes. Lots of huskies are listed as shepherd mixes.
Yet, the temperament of these two breeds is markedly different. Also, remember that GSDs have black muzzles which is a dominant trait. Therefore, a mutt without a black muzzle isn’t more than 25% GSD.