A 3-year-old girl in Oklahoma is dead after her family’s new dog attacked her over the weekend.
Rylee Marie Dodge was at home in Duncan with her grandmother when she was mauled. Her father Jason Dodge had just left the house 20 minutes prior, he told KFOR.
The dog was given to him by a friend five days earlier and there were no signs the dog was vicious, the family said.
KFOR later reported that the dog had been in the home for less than a week.
When he got a call that there had been an attack, Dodge rushed back and arrived to find his daughter dead and his mother on top of the dog restraining the canine.
When officers arrived on the scene, the dog began to approach them so they shot and killed it, reported KSWO.
Officers are still investigating but say the girl was attacked when she opened her front door to play with the dog outside, where it then attacked and dragged her.
“I got the call, you know, ‘your daughter and the dog’ is all I heard,” Dodge told KWSO. “When I came in the house, my mom was laying on the dog, I picked her up and carried her right out the front door. I threw her in the passenger seat to go to the hospital, then the ambulance came and took her out of my truck,” Dodge added.
(Jason Dodge/Facebook)
When EMS workers arrived on the scene, there was nothing they could do.
“There was nothing they could do, absolutely nothing,” Dodge added.
“I was like ‘kill this dog, shoot it down or I will,’ and he did. He shot it in the backyard,” Dodge said of the deputies that responded.
According to KWSO, the breed of the dog was a pit bull, and it was named Remington. They brought the animal home only five days before the attack.
“I was very cautious about it because I don’t just bring random dogs into my home,” Dodge said. “Took my son over there, the dog didn’t attack him. It loved him, gave him a hug and licked him on the face. Brought him over here, my son came outside all day long and played with him, didn’t do nothing to him.”
Dodge added: “I’m just too depressed right now to talk much more. I just miss her so much.”
According to the American Pit Bull Foundation, “there are many myths surrounding the American Pit Bull Terrier and hopefully after reading this article you’ll become an advocate for spreading the truth.” It says: “It is reported on temperament tests conducted by the American Temperament Test Society that Pit Bulls had a passing rate of 82% or better — compared to only 77% of the general dog population.”
According to the Center For Disease Control (CDC), some 4.5 million dog bites occur in the United States every year, and 900,000 of those bites become infected, says The Canine Journal. It adds that the dogs the bite the most are Chihuahuas, Bulldogs, Pit Bulls, German Shepherds, Australian Shepherds, Jack Russell Terriers, Cocker Spaniels, Bull Terriers, Pekingese dogs, and Papillion dogs.
But, it noted, of the 41 fatal dog attacks in the United States, pit bulls killed the most, contributing 22 of these deaths.
From 2005 to 2016, pit bulls and Rottweilers accounted for 76 percent of fatal attacks, the website said.
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