Dog Kills 13-Year-Old New Jersey Boy, Injures Two Others

Kenneth Clodo Santillan (pictured with his dad), 13, was attacked and mauled to death last Friday by a bullmastif while walking in Paterson, N.J., with a friend. The unidentified friend was also attacked, as was the dog’s owner, Paul Clarke (pictured with Trigger), according to The Record.

Police records state that Santillan and his friend were walking along a street at about 4:30 p.m. when the 115-pound dog, whose name was Trigger, lunged at them. As to what provoked the animal, the details, per investigators, remain sketchy.

The canine initially bit the unidentified child on his hand, yet he was able to get away. Santillan, however, was not so lucky; Trigger chased after him and at 11 p.m., hours later after the initial attack, his lifeless body was found behind Clarke’s home.

The child who had accompanied Santillan was spotted running down a block bleeding from his hand. Carmen Baez, who was outside of her home when the unnamed child approached her, was told by the boy that he had been attacked by a dog. Baez ran into her house to get bandages and paper towels for the youth in order to control the bleeding. According to Baez, the fidgety child wrapped his hand, then quickly left the premises. The woman offered to call 911 but the child asked her not to do so. He also did not reveal his name.

Maria Zacheus, who lives near where Santillan’s body was discovered, told The Record that at around 9 p.m., she heard what seemed to be a search party taking place behind her apartment building. Zacheus heard a man crying unceasingly and yelling repeatedly, “My son! My son! My son!” The woman used her smartphone to record several video clips of the search.

Clarke, who had owned the dog, was forced to stab his canine repeatedly in order to get away from it because the animal had then turned on him on the same day as the Santillan attack.

According to neighbors, the dog was friendly at first but then his temperament changed for the worse after kids on the block taunted him. Other residents told the paper that many feared the aggressive dog that often barked and growled as strangers walked by his fenced area. One neighbor said Trigger had actually escaped his fenced area twice in the past by jumping over it because he was a big dog.

Zacheus said Trigger had tried to attack her and her 6-year-old grandson in the past, stating, “Monday through Friday, I walk through here to go pick him up from school. I always see the dog. He starts barking. He’s very aggressive.” The grandmother admitted that she had to cross the street in order to avoid any close contact with the dog.

Trigger was “humanely euthanized” by police and his remains are being tested for rabies. Santillan’s friend and Clarke were treated at a nearby hospital and released.

Investigators are still delving into the Santillan case. An autopsy will be conducted on the teen in order to find out the exact cause of death.

Thus far, no charges have been filed against Clarke. Police are asking anyone with information about the Santillan case to contact 973-321-1120.

“Pure bred dogs will have far more predictable behavior than mongrels. However, when canid behavior indicates aggression toward humans, reasoned and prudent owners ascertain the reason for the new behavior and act accordingly.”

^This^

I’ve had a couple dogs “suddenly” get nasty.

One had neurological Lyme and the other, severe hypothyroidism.

Had I been a knee-jerk, stupid owner, I might have considered having them killed for the ‘sake of safety’.

The Lyme dog lived another 9, problem free years after treatment and the properly medicated thyroid dog is lying here right now, good as gold again.

Dogs never “suddenly” do things for no reason.

Ask why and you will always find a cause.

[perhaps like neighborhood punks tormenting it through a fence, day after day after day]

If my dad had caught me tormenting somebody’s dog, he’d have kicked my ass.

And I would have deserved it.

He also would not have had any pity if the dog had bitten me for my troubles.

I was taught early that my actions have consequences and I solely owned them.

Breed standards are a dependable guideline of what you can expect from that puppy you’re bringing home.

Decades and centuries were devoted to “fixing” the characteristics and traits within the breeds.

Mutts, while a nice, feel good idea, are not as dependable when trying to assay what they will “be like” as adults.

There are infinite combinations of breeds and many of those combinations are either bad or deceptive.

Back in the 70s, Dobe/GSD crosses were common here.

You’d think that would be a wonderful dog but more often than not, it wasn’t.

A Dobe is made to go after people and protect with extreme prejudice.

A GSD is made to herd and needs to be taught to really “guard” and “attack”.

People had a lot of trouble with that mix snapping at kids, neighbors, strangers and delivery people because the gentler “herding mind” of the GSD was being altered by the harder “taking them down” mind of the Dobe.

The two breeds’ “styles” conflict badly.

A mutt can vacillate between any of the breeds in it. without warning and you will never know for sure really what breeds *are* in it, even with those ridiculously bogus “Mutt DNA” tests.

You can only -know- if you know they dog’s parents, personally.

Case in point, “Doberdoodles”.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

There are Ibizan mixes showing up in rescue now and people assume that Collie or whatever is going to modify the Ibizan’s tendency to take off at high speed, not heed your call and get hit or lost.

It is what it is, no matter what else gets “mixed in”.

Dog breeds are not paint.

You can’t mix black and white and call it gray.

There will always be the black and the white, living side by side in the dog’s mind.

It gets insanely complicated when more than two breeds are combined.

All bets are off.

I’m sure I’m going to be called a “breed snob” or some such crap but that is NOT my point.

If you want as much control over your dog and every situation you might find it in, your best bet is always a reputable breeder.

For the sake of dogs in shelters everywhere, I wish that weren’t so but to convince anyone otherwise is to live in the same happy-pink-sky world that liberals do.

And I refuse to do that.

Reality is not soft and fuzzy.

[not directing this at you, Wardaddy, it’s for general consumption]

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