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Sidon, whose estimated weight was between 45 and 50 pounds, left more than 50 puncture wounds in tiny Thomas Carter Jr. The baby’s mother, 16-year-old Nicole Koezeno, awoke when a friend stopped by the family’s mobile home at 10548 Olsen St. around 11:45 a.m. and found her bloodied son. She had been sleeping in the same bedroom with the baby and dog but reportedly did not hear the attack.

When a Pasco Animal Services officer arrived at the home Wednesday afternoon, the canine was fighting another dog, said agency Manager Denise Hilton.

Hilton said she was told by a canine attack expert that it’s highly unusual for a dog to continue being aggressive after a first attack.

“This dog has numerous injuries and bites all over its body due the dog fight,” she said early today.
Sidon, Hilton said, was not neutered.

“This, again, was an intact male dog, which tend to be more aggressive,” she said. “He should’ve been neutered before he was a year old.”

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“This is something that never should’ve happened,” Hilton said of the latest attack. “People need to realize the potential of these animals. They are animals. They’re not people.”

Jim Crosby, division manager for Bay County Animal Control in the Panama City area, has studied fatal dog attacks throughout the country and in Canada. He said that fatal dog attacks are rare.

“It’s incredibly uncommon,” he said today. “You have about a 10-time higher likelihood of dying from slipping in your bathtub.”

So far this year, either eight or nine fatal dog attacks have been reported nationwide, he said. That number is on par for the annual average of less than 30.

For example, Crosby said, compare that to the average of about 60 people who die annually from bee stings.

“Most of the victims of the fatal attacks are children,” he said. “…Over time, about 76 percent of all fatal dog attack victims are 12 and under and most of those are 6 and under.”

Of the dozens of cases he’s investigated, he has seen some similarities.

“The most common denominator with fatal attacks is lack of supervision with children and dogs,” Crosby said.

And it’s not necessarily any one breed that is the culprit of most attacks. In fact, he said, he’s seen everything from pit bulls to dachshunds to Pomeranians kill humans.

“I would say that big dogs tend to be more commonly involved than little dogs,” he conceded, adding that the dogs’ sizes made more serious damage easier. “It’s a matter of physics.”

Why dogs attack differs, he said.

“Every one of them varies a little bitm just like a homicide,” he said, noting that some are just born a little off mentally.

“You get dogs that are the Ted Bundys.”

In many cases, he said, the dog that becomes aggressive has not been properly socialized, trained or loved.

And in most cases, he said, it’s not simply that a dog just snaps – something provokes or triggers it.

“It’s extremely rare for a dog to just go off,” Crosby said. “Something gets the ball rolling.”

In other cases, the dog thinks it’s playing.

“In many cases, it appears the dog thought the child is a chew toy,” Crosby said matter-of-factly.

What caused Sidon to attack Thomas Carter Jr. might never be known.

A question that remains on many people’s minds is why his young mother did not hear the attack.

“I’ve been confronted by plenty of aggressive dogs and I’ve never been confronted by a silent dog,” he said. “I can’t imagine a child sleeping through a mauling. A baby is born screaming.”

A friend who stayed over the family’s home said Tuesday she heard the baby cry briefly a few minutes before he was found. But roommate Jonathan Gibson, who was asleep on the other end of the small mobile home, said he didn’t hear any “vicious sounds.”

“Only the good Lord above knows what really happened inside that room, and it’s just a tragic accident,” Gibson said.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/apr/15/dog-killed-week-old-boy-be-euthanized-today/