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Very Disturbing Story

post #1 of 23
10/16/03 at 3:50pm
Thread Starter 
Warning - I found this story very disturbing. It was in today's newspaper:

Disabled boy's dog gnaws off fingers


Published October 16, 2003 SHT216

TAMPA, FLA. -- A 6-year-old boy who is partially paralyzed had four fingers chewed off by his family's puppy because he couldn't feel the animal gnawing at his hand.

Dontavius Bryant suffered partial paralysis on his left side when he was in a hit-and-run crash a year ago, police said. The 5 1/2-week-old dog chewed off his fingers to his second knuckle while he slept, police said. He was in good condition at Tampa Children's Hospital on Wednesday.

Dontavius' 10-year-old brother, who shares a bed with him, found blood on the bed when he awoke Monday.

Animal control officials destroyed the puppy, a chow/pit bull mix named Chaka.


I don't even know what I find the most horrible about this story. First, why was a 5 1/2 week old puppy taken away from it's mother? Of course, how awful for the boy. And I'm horribly upset that the puppy was destroyed.
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post #2 of 23
10/16/03 at 3:55pm
I don't know, that story seems WAY WAY fishy to me. We got nanook (chow mix) when he was 8 weeks old and there is NO way he could have nawed a finger off. I just won't think a 5 1/2 week old puppy would be strong enough to do that. Maybe a 5 1/2 MONTH old puppy. I think it is really said that the puppy was distroyed. It should have been place with somewhere else. On top of that wouldn't the kid have bleed to death? and WHY was the puppy left alone long enough to do that much damange. Puppies need to be let out VERY often and it would have taken that puppy a LONG time to do that. Also, what was the kid doing? Sleeping with his hand hanging way down off the bed? A puppy that small couldn't jump up on the bed. It just doesn't make any sense.
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post #3 of 23
10/16/03 at 4:05pm
Thread Starter 
I didn't sit right with me, either. But it was in today's StarTribune online. (Link to the story is here. )

All I could think of was if someone did take the puppy away from it's mother so early, maybe it was so distressed it was chewing for comfort. But I agree, it doesn't seem right for a puppy that small to be able to do that much damage.
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post #4 of 23
10/16/03 at 4:14pm
something is very fish. that is way to young for a puppy to be taken away from the mother. And WHY would someone with small childeren get a dog that was a pitbull and chow mix Misty has pitbull in her and nanook as chow, but that is normally the choice for a family pet. I still don't understand why the puppy was able to run around the house unwatched long enough to be able to do that. He must have been going potty all over the place. I don't know, I feel worse for the puppy then anything.
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post #5 of 23
10/16/03 at 4:20pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
I don't know, I feel worse for the puppy then anything.
Me, too. Puppies chew, just most of us feel pain and stop them when they start chewing on us. I do feel sorry for the boy also. Like I wrote in my first post, this story disturbed me on so many levels.

Quote:
WHY would someone with small childeren get a dog that was a pitbull and chow mix
I agree - this is not probably a good choice for a family pet. WHY do people refuse to think about if they are making a good choice before they get pets???
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post #6 of 23
10/16/03 at 6:08pm
I agree about this story being strange and it's hard to know if it's really true. If it really happened, I wonder if maybe the puppy didn't just damage the child's fingers and then doctors performed an amputation later at the hospital because they were really concerned about the possibility of infection or something????

Several years ago I read another really strange story in a newspaper. In this story, a two year old boy had his face torn off when he was attacked by the family pitbull. Doctors were able to surgically reattach the boy's face, but because of all the muscle and nerve damage he would have to go through life without having any facial expressions. I don't remember if the dog was destroyed or not, and I have no way of knowing if this really happened. I guess I just remember reading this story because it was so disturbing...just like yours is, Suzy.

BTW, does smelling and tasting human blood trigger any type of wild instinct in a dog?
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post #7 of 23
10/16/03 at 9:37pm
Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm
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post #8 of 23
10/17/03 at 12:07am
Quote:
Originally posted by Lorie D.

BTW, does smelling and tasting human blood trigger any type of wild instinct in a dog? [/b]
Probably the reason why the dog was killed. Maybe they thought the dog developed a taste for human flesh & therefore considered dangerous.
I also think there is something wrong with the story.I believe that chewing/gnawing the fingers would be a rather noisy business. I guess the brother was deaf & also partially paralyzed not to be able to feel the bed shaking when the dog was supposedly tearing off the flesh.
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post #9 of 23
10/17/03 at 12:27am
Quote:
I agree - this is not probably a good choice for a family pet. WHY do people refuse to think about if they are making a good choice before they get pets???
Quote:
WHY would someone with small childeren get a dog that was a pitbull and chow mix
I have to strongly disagree with this. Not all chows and pits are mean, yes they are strong dogs and if someone trains them to fight then they will fight to please their owner. But if it's a family pet and socialized they are not mean dogs at all. I had chows growing up and they were the sweetest dogs ever, very gentle with me as a kid. I currently have a pit chow mix who wouldn't harm a fly. She is very docile and submissive.
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post #10 of 23
10/17/03 at 1:53am
This is sad! The poor dog was doing what comes naturally! Chewing no matter what is being chewed on is natural! Dogs in the wild start to eat Meat once they start getting teeth at aprox 4 wks old ( from my experiances) yes it is very possiable for a puppy to chew through fingers. More so when you have a pit bull mix where they have VERY strong jaws. As for the brother sleeping next to him....and for those you you with children..........How many times have you tried to wake up your child when they were in a very deep sleep and couldn't because no matter how loud you got they were still sleeping......I know of children who have slept through car crashes( my best friends little girl whose 11 and this was just last month) not just finder benders but actual Crunched cars. Some if not most children reach a certain stage of sleep and sleep harder then anything.


The poor puppy shouldn't have been taken away from it's mother and who knows maybe the mother is in the house with him. that doesn't mean he's not going to explore. As for him being put to sleep......good god! He was a little thing just learning the ropes!! It's like saying that because a cat bit you and drew blood it needs to be put to sleep cause it now has the taste of human blood........you guys wouldn't go for that at all! This little puppy could be trained if put in the right environment to not bite PERIOD.


I do feel for the boy as if enough hasn't happened to him in his life then to add this on to it! all in all this was just a bad situation for both the boy and his family and the puppy.
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post #11 of 23
10/17/03 at 4:25am
Quote:
Originally posted by uabassoon
I have to strongly disagree with this. Not all chows and pits are mean, yes they are strong dogs and if someone trains them to fight then they will fight to please their owner. But if it's a family pet and socialized they are not mean dogs at all. I had chows growing up and they were the sweetest dogs ever, very gentle with me as a kid. I currently have a pit chow mix who wouldn't harm a fly. She is very docile and submissive.
the other part of my sentences goes on to explain that I have a chow mix and a pit mix. I didn't say they were mean dogs, but they are not normally the first choice for family pets. Because of chows large heads and small eyes they do not like people coming up behind them and it scares them. So they do alot of nipping. I love my babies but I don't think dogs of that size should be around kinda unsupervised.
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post #12 of 23
10/17/03 at 4:28am
Quote:
Originally posted by WillowsMom
As for him being put to sleep......good god! He was a little thing just learning the ropes!! It's like saying that because a cat bit you and drew blood it needs to be put to sleep cause it now has the taste of human blood........you guys wouldn't go for that at all! This little puppy could be trained if put in the right environment to not bite PERIOD.
I don't think anyone here is going for the idea of the puppy being put to sleep.
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post #13 of 23
10/17/03 at 5:48am
Yet again I wonder about the parents. Just as a rule of thumb you do not leave children and animals(especially baby animals or humans) unattended. To have a disabled child and an baby animal alone? Sheesh. No, obviously the puppy should not have been put down. It was NOT a vicious attack. It was nibbling at exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.
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post #14 of 23
10/17/03 at 5:58am
Originally posted by Willowsmom
Quote:
As for him being put to sleep......good god! He was a little thing just learning the ropes!!
This is just my opinion, but I'm sure the entire family was traumatized by what happened to the boy's fingers. I think it's sad that the puppy was put to sleep also, but the parents probably made a very emotional decision to have the puppy destroyed.

Originally posted by kidsncats
Quote:
Just as a rule of thumb you do not leave children and animals(especially baby animals or humans) unattended. To have a disabled child and an baby animal alone?
Maybe the kids snuck the puppy into their bedroom without the parent's knowledge?
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post #15 of 23
10/17/03 at 2:09pm
Thread Starter 
Well, this story for some reason was still really bothering me today, so I decided to see if I could find a more detailed article. I checked the Tampa Tribune, and found the following article (link to the article is here.):

Puppy Chews Off Fingertips Of 6-Year-Old Asleep In Bed
By CASSIO FURTADO cfurtado@tampatrib.com
Published: Oct 15, 2003



TAMPA - Six-year-old Dontavius Bryant went to sleep Sunday night with Chauka, his 5 1/2-week-old puppy his aunt gave him two weeks ago.
When Dontavius woke up Monday morning, he saw blood in his bed and looked at his hands. Chauka, a mix of chow and pit bull, had chewed four fingertips down to the second knuckle of the boy's left hand.

``My brother told me to look at my hand,'' said Dontavius, sitting in a wheelchair Tuesday afternoon during a news conference at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital. His left hand was wrapped in white gauze.

``I looked at it, and it was bleeding,'' he said.

Dontavius, who is right- handed, didn't feel the dog biting his fingers because an accident a year ago caused numbness in his left hand.

Dontavius was hit by a pickup truck in October while trying to cross East Columbus Drive, according to police reports. He was heading home after playing football in a church parking lot across the street. He darted into the road and was hit by the pickup, which didn't stop to help him, according to police reports.

The accident left him partially paralyzed on his left side, said his mother, Shawn Dewberry.

Asked by reporters if he felt any pain or was scared when he woke up Monday morning, he said no.

His mother was.

Dewberry woke up to take her older children to school, saw Dontavius' hand and started screaming.

``When I woke up, four of his fingers were off. It was a lot of blood,'' she said. ``He went to sleep with 10 fingers, woke up with six.''

Dewberry rushed Dontavius to St. Joseph's Children's Hospital.

Dewberry said her son underwent reconstructive surgery at St. Joseph's. She said doctors used skin from his stomach to cover his damaged fingers.

Chauka was taken by Hillsborough County Animal Control and euthanized. A necropsy determined he had chewed the child's fingers.

Dewberry said Dontavius didn't wash his hands after dinner Sunday, and Chauka licked his fingers before both went to bed.

Chauka will be the last dog Dontavius will have, his mother said.

``I don't want more dogs,'' Dewberry said. ``We're going to stick to fish, to birds. No pets like dogs.''

He will still be able to play video games, one of his passions. Dontavius, a student at Potter Elementary, enjoys playing his Nintendo video game. He was playing at the hospital.

``I'll be OK. I can still play video games with one hand,'' he said.

The boy could be released from St. Joseph's as soon as today, and he already has plans for when he returns home.

``I want to go outside and play ... and watch TV,'' he said.


Reporter Cassio Furtado can be reached at (813) 259-7616


According to this story, they got the puppy when it was 3-1/2 weeks old! I'm glad the woman says she'll never get another dog - she shouldn't!
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post #16 of 23
10/17/03 at 2:39pm
3 & 1/2 weeks?

WTH????

That is a very disturbing story, for many reasons. The puppy was WAY too young to be separated from its mother (unless perhaps it was orphaned?). A dog or puppy should NEVER, NEVER, EVER be left unattended with a young child, no matter how gentle, trustworthy, or harmless you might think your dog is, for the safety of both child and dog. No, they shouldn't have another dog. How irresponsible can you get? Poor kid. Poor puppy.

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post #17 of 23
10/17/03 at 2:53pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
I have to strongly disagree with this. Not all chows and pits are mean, yes they are strong dogs and if someone trains them to fight then they will fight to please their owner. But if it's a family pet and socialized they are not mean dogs at all. I had chows growing up and they were the sweetest dogs ever, very gentle with me as a kid. I currently have a pit chow mix who wouldn't harm a fly. She is very docile and submissive.
Yes, you are right. I've read that chows are extremely devoted to their families. I was just really upset yesterday.
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post #18 of 23
10/17/03 at 3:09pm
He was walking home from playing foot ball when he was five and got hit by a truck WHERE WAS HIS MOTHER!!!!!!!!! and now he gets his figures chewed off by a dog that was taken away from it's mother when it was 3.5 weeks old...I think someone needs to step in and get a good look at the whole pic and see what is going on with that family!
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post #19 of 23
10/18/03 at 12:59am
Quote:
Originally posted by Princess Purr
I don't think anyone here is going for the idea of the puppy being put to sleep.



I was just saying my peice on it. Not cliaming that someone on here was for the idea. Sorry if it came off that way!
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post #20 of 23
10/18/03 at 1:03am
Quote:
Originally posted by kidsncats
Yet again I wonder about the parents. Just as a rule of thumb you do not leave children and animals(especially baby animals or humans) unattended. To have a disabled child and an baby animal alone? Sheesh. No, obviously the puppy should not have been put down. It was NOT a vicious attack. It was nibbling at exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.


I think differently on that. I grew up from the time I was born until I was 7 with my very own dog.......she was actually brought into my home before I was even born. at the age of 8 weeks old. and not one week later I was born. She was by my side 24-7. And to be honest I still feel her with me when I get depressed and down. She was MY dog. She never attempted to harm me. The fact of leaving the puppy with a child........I just don't agree with.
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post #21 of 23
10/18/03 at 1:05am
Quote:
Originally posted by Lorie D.
This is just my opinion, but I'm sure the entire family was traumatized by what happened to the boy's fingers. I think it's sad that the puppy was put to sleep also, but the parents probably made a very emotional decision to have the puppy destroyed.

I can understand that. But it's still very sad, and IMO wrong to have done. But once again like my Siggy says......I'm not exactly a cat person. I am on my first cat Ever in all my 26 years of life. But from the time I was an infant up until last Jan I had a dog.
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post #22 of 23
10/18/03 at 5:12am
I am not trying to be argumentative, but I seriously doubt you and the puppy were left alone when you were tiny. In my post I meant very small children, under the age of 2 for example. Of course this is going to vary from child to child. The general thought is that puppy/kitten teeth are very very sharp, and a childrens skin is very easily broken. There is a whole different thinking for older animals and very small children that really varies extremely with the animal you're dealing with. The thinking behind not leaving a baby animal alone with older children (2-6ish) is for the animals safety. Many children do not realize how roughly they play. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions to the rule both ways, some children shouldn't be left unattended with a small animal until much older than six, and some are fine at an earlier age.

I was posting as a parent and as an animal lover. I think that the mother in this situation was obviously inexperienced with animals and didn't take some safety precautions. This is all totally excluding the fact that this puppy was WAY too young to be taken from Momma. If one of my children were presented with the puppy I would have politely refused the gift.
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post #23 of 23
10/18/03 at 11:54pm
Quote:
Originally posted by kidsncats
I am not trying to be argumentative, but I seriously doubt you and the puppy were left alone when you were tiny.
I understand......But on the same aspect.....yes the puppy and I were left alone numerous times. My parents have told me stories of finding the dog laying under my crib. even have pictures of the two of us with me being about 17 months old curled up with my dog in the pens we had for the dogs my dad trained and breeded. She never left my side unless I wasn't in the Area. She was my side kick. and even my parents will tell you that she never left my side. yes as a puppy she and I were alone on numerous occasions Everyone parents differently and Since my father trained,breeded, and loved dogs my house was always full of them, not to mention Pigs. Back in the time that my parents were raised it was common to have children of all ages involved in farm happenings. well we had a uncommon type of farm we had Dogs and pigs. Breed them them all and loved them all. when I was about 2 years old I sneaked out of the house to go sleep in the Pig's pens with the new little piglets. My parents woke up to find me gone and seached everywhere and low and behold there I was curled up with Bess and her piglets. as far as leaving kids alone with animals It's all in how they are taught both kid and pet. I was taught to be gentle with them. Rough was what my brother was for.
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