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STUFF
A kennel is empty at the Hamilton home where a baby was fatally injured in a dog attack.
When Karen closes her eyes, she sees a mother sitting on the lawn outside her home in Hamilton, holding the fatally injured baby who had given birth less than a day earlier.
All the Enderley woman could do was sit back and hug the new mom, who was sitting holding the crying child she had so proudly displayed just hours earlier, now the victim of a tragic dog attack.
The baby, who had been born the night before, suffered serious injuries in the incident around 7 p.m. Sunday.
St John Ambulance rushed him to Waikato Hospital, but police confirmed that Stuff on Tuesday he had died overnight.
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Karen, who only wanted her first name used, lived near the mother’s house and had gone to help when she saw a commotion on the street.
The tragic cruelty of what she found by the roadside on a hot work weekend night now haunts her.
The mother had only gone to the bathroom when the tragedy unfolded, Karen said. One of the two family dogs apparently picks up and attacks the newborn boy and attempts to bury him.
Unaware that the baby she had met so fleetingly had lost its brief struggle to stay alive, Karen collapsed when she heard the news Tuesday morning.
RNZ
The one-day-old baby who was attacked by a dog on Sunday died in hospital. Emergency services were alerted to the incident in the suburb of Enderly around 7 p.m. Sunday.
Karen’s eyes filled with tears as she described how small the baby was and how proud her mother had been of him.
MARK TAYLOR / Stuff
The street where the incident occurred was quiet Tuesday, with residents mourning the baby’s death.
He had been on the property twice, early Sunday when the Rottweiler had escaped. Being familiar with the dog, she helped him by placing him back in the well fenced section.
The mother had shown Karen her new baby when she returned the dog to her. I was so happy that he was born the night before, Karen said.
“Obviously, he meant the world to her.”
Later that night, Karen saw something happen on the street and assumed that the dog had gone outside again and perhaps had been hit by a car.
But when he got closer he saw the stark vignette of the new mother sitting on the edge of the grass by the road, tenderly holding her baby.
“I sat next to the mother and put my arm around her,” she said.
The baby was crying a lot, he said.
“He was so small.
“It was all dirty and had blood stains.
“He told me which dog did it, they have two. It was the rottweiler.
Karen realized that the dog had tried to bury the boy.
The mother said she needed her phone and Karen came in to get it. It was in the bathroom.
“All he did was go to the bathroom and it happened like this.
“Everything is horrible, every time I close my eyes I see it.”
The Rottweiler was about 2 years old and Karen said this was the second Rottweiler the woman had ever had, since the other had died.
The mother had just had a new dog.
Both animals were taken to the kennel, Karen said.
The Hamilton City Council confirmed that animal control personnel had picked up “the dog” and what would happen to him would depend on the police investigation. The baby’s death has been referred to the coroner.
But that night, knowing that the two dogs were still on the property, Karen simply tied the two of them to their kennels as the horror of what had happened washed over those at the scene.
“No one else was prepared to go in with the dogs,” Karen said.
“I locked him up twice that day.”
What could have been without his simple gesture of helping the neighbors earlier in the day remains on Karen’s mind.
“I almost feel guilty for taking him home.”
