Toddler Killed by Painted Dogs

[GsdLoverr729]

Thanks for clarifying that. Sorry... I'm quite out of it right now.

This story is awful...

[readaboutdogs]

It is terrible. I have kind of a fear of heights and still bothers me for people to get to close to edge of something. So sorry for the child, total trust and innocence.

[llombardo]

As a mother I'd have to say that I have never allowed my child or any child that is in my care to be on a railing like that. I have walked away when I seen other people do that. As much as I hate when people do this, I don't think I've seen anyone have their child standing on the railing, sitting and being held tight yes(this scared me), but never standing. This had to be horrifying to watch and I feel sick when I think about it.

[doggiedad]

the toddlers mother placed him on a railing along the fence.

[RocketDog]

IMHO the police would not send homicide investigators to interview if they believed it were purely accidental. Anyone remember Susan Smith? People, even mothers are capable of the most horrific things. *shudder*

My heart aches and I hope that little boy did not suffer. I'm sick even thinking about it.

[selzer]

Not everyone is a hero. If this was tigers or lions or polar bears, how many people would jump in to save the toddler. I play with the idea that I could be such a hero, but I doubt it. And especially if I saw zoo personnel right there, I would think they might have something and maybe be trained in some way to best deal with such a situation.

Poor baby. What a massive fail on the part of the parent. This is why all the whoop-la concerning child endangering by the crocodile hunter. And if you watch Fatal Attractions, and you see people's wild pets killing people, I don't know, while it is a terrible tragedy, it should have been foreseen by the parent and guarded against.

I grew up in Cleveland, and often I was at the zoo without adults, probably from age four to ten. I think the zoo there is very safe, but it is a large zoo probably with a large budget. The Erie Zoo in PA is a small zoo. I was there about 20 years ago. I cannot really comment much about the quality of the protection and enclosures, but it would make sense that they would not be as likely to afford the same type of enclosures as the larger zoos have. I have never been to the Pittsburg Zoo, but my guess is it would be somewhere in between Erie and Cleveland in how much support and money they have to make enclosures.

While I don't think the zoo is at fault, the mother was at fault, I think the attitude is disturbing. I mean making railing such that there is a likelyhood that children would be rested there, angling them so that they would be likely to fall back instead of in, and then having a net that is open enough so that the child was able to bounce into danger. And when all their methods did fail, the attitude is that it is impossible to be failsafe. I just don't know.

[starburst]

What a terrible tragedy....one that could have easily been avoided.

I an a mother of 2 young kids and also care for children aged 0-5 as a living and when I hear stories like this it makes me sick.

Maybe I watch too many "I shouldn't be alive,I;'m alive,fatal attraction type shows but I tend to err on the side of caution when I am around animals, especially wild ones with my kids