Pit Bulls Maul 2-Year-Old Boy

Officials Say Attack Was Vicious

POSTED: 9:50 PM PDT September 12, 2003

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- A 2-year-old boy was nearly killed Friday after being mauled by two pit bulls.

Neighbors found 2-year-old Issac Zavaleta inside this home alone, being attacked by the dogs early Friday morning.

They say they're shocked not only that it happened, but that the mother, identified as Vanessa Cruz, left the baby there with the dogs while she reportedly took her boyfriend to work.

At about 7 a.m., a neighbor went to the house to find the two dogs -- named Cane and Sane -- chewing on the boy's head.

The boy underwent surgery at Kern Medical Center earlier Friday before being transferred to Valley Children's Hospital in Madera.

The man who discovered the attack took the boy and gave him to another neighbor, Rosalia Martinez. Blood spots mark the spot where she held him until paramedics arrived.

"I didn't see any injuries in his body," Martinez said. "(But his) scalp (was) pulled back."

Neighbors say the mother arrived after the ambulance and was questioned by sheriff's detectives. Neighbors, many of whom know little Issac, are devastated.

"I was crying," said neighbor Sophia Padilla. "I have a 2-year-old."

The pit bulls are now at animal control. They will be tested for rabies, then destroyed. Animal control officials say they rarely see a dog attack this vicious.

"Pitbulls are Peaceful and Loving Dogs"

1 posted on 09/13/2003 12:54:48 PM PDT by ambrose

It's not the pitbulls... it's the owners!

Kill all pitbull owners.

2 posted on 09/13/2003 12:57:50 PM PDT by StatesEnemy

3 posted on 09/13/2003 1:05:23 PM PDT by netmilsmom (Something caught my eye....and dragged it 15 feet.)

4 posted on 09/13/2003 1:09:18 PM PDT by thoughtomator (Israel is the canary in the coal mine of Islamofascism)

I don't know how many times this has to happen. Pit bulls, while some are good natured, have a level of unpredictability that makes them an unsafe breed. Anyone who owns one should have to have a special license, pass certain eligibility standards for housing them, and have to have liability insurance on them. Their attack rate is twice that of other breeds.

And just because they're sweet and loving for years to you, that doesn't mean that one day they won't brutally attack your neighbor or a small child, or even turn on you without warning. They just snap. I grew up around them, and owned a few dogs that were pit hybrids, and I've only seen one that didn't eventually turn or display agressive behavior to someone.

I had two of the sweetest and most loving dogs you could find, and adopted both knowing they had some pit in them. I had both for about 2 years, and they were sweet as pie around everyone, including my daughter, who was 6. They rode in the car with us, slept with us, and eventually, they both went bad. One went nuts when she got pregnant. She was supposed to have been spayed according to law, but they didn't do it. She got hormonal, and went completely nuts. She wound up killing half of her pups, attacking my 8 week old puppy and nearly killing her, and came after me and the dog when I broke it up. I had to keep her on a short chain for weeks. She eventual calmed back down, but by then I didn't trust her anymore. The other one I had gotten rid of a couple of months previous, because out of the blue, she tried to corner my wife and daughter, and started snarling and baring her teeth at them. If she hadn't been on a stationary chain, they would have been in serious trouble. She calmed down later, and went back to being her old loveable self, but I didn't trust her at that point. I could go on and on about my neighbor's pits as well, but I think you get the picture. The whole breed suffers from some sort of psychosis or instability.

5 posted on 09/13/2003 1:12:54 PM PDT by TheLurkerX ("When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro..." Hunter S. Thompson)

I agree,a dog is a dog. The mother should be jailed,what the hell is the matter with these people?

6 posted on 09/13/2003 1:23:12 PM PDT by Mears

7 posted on 09/13/2003 1:48:36 PM PDT by ambrose (Member of the McClintock Militia)

Just last week, the attack in Tennessee was discussed. Someone yielded the best idea yet:

Declare it an exotic pet, like a tiger, and require prohibitive insurance rates to keep and breed such a beast.

8 posted on 09/13/2003 1:51:14 PM PDT by Senator Goldwater

The mother is a first rate idiot. But I don't see how spending 40k a year to throw her in jail will make her any less of an idiot. The guilt of what she did to her kid is worse than anything the state can inflict on her anyway.

In the broader picture, large dogs bred for aggression and fighting may have their place in the world. But that place is not around kids. If pitbull owners don't going to have the common sense to realize that, and they don't, it is going to have to be imposed on them by the nanny state. Either through a heavy handed outright ban, or a mess of career bureaucrats and licensing red tape. A real lose-lose if you ask me.

9 posted on 09/13/2003 1:53:21 PM PDT by CGTRWK

To: Senator Goldwater

Bingo--That's a great idea

10 posted on 09/13/2003 3:46:00 PM PDT by VMI70 (...but two Wrights made an airplane)

Should price out these low-lifes who regard savagery as a form of social status.

11 posted on 09/13/2003 5:06:40 PM PDT by Senator Goldwater

Pit bulls *are* peaceful and loving. The only problem is that thugs and scumf*cks like to train them for fighting (which is something the breed was and is very good at).

Don't buy into the killer pit bull hype.

12 posted on 09/14/2003 12:09:59 PM PDT by Conservative til I die (They say anti-Catholicism is the thinking man's anti-Semitism; that's an insult to thinking men)

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