Dog Kills Child; Dog Owner Blames Child

Think that headline is bad enough? How about the fact that the dog owner is also the mother of the victim:

The mother of a 12-year-old boy killed in his own home by one of the family's two pit bulls says she had been so concerned about one of the dogs that she shut her son in the basement to protect him.

Maureen Faibish said she ordered Nicholas to stay in the basement while she did errands on June 3, the day he was attacked by one or both of the dogs.

She said she was worried about the male dog, Rex, who was acting possessive because the female, Ella, was in heat.

"I put him down there, with a shovel on the door," Faibish said in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. "And I told him: 'Stay down there until I come back.' Typical Nicky, he wouldn't listen to me."

Yeah, those damn kids. They just don't know when to stay locked in the basement to avoid the vicious animals their parents keep around the house. Clearly it would not have made more sense to lock the dog in the basement, or maybe not have it around the house at all. Or, at the very least, to take some responsibility instead of blaming your recently mauled-to-death child.