Pitbull Who Mauled 4-Year-Old Boy Sentenced To Life In No-Kill Shelter

Wait, dogs are getting trials now? Who is paying for this?

Pitbull Who Mauled 4-Year-Old Being Sent To No Kill Shelter

According to Newsday reports:

A judge ruled Tuesday that a pit bull that mauled a 4-year-old boy earlier this year will spend the rest of its life in an animal shelter set up in an old jail by the sheriff for metropolitan Phoenix.

Phoenix Municipal Court Judge Deborah Griffith said the dog named Mickey will be housed in the no-kill shelter opened in 2000 by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, an animal lover who offered to take in the 4-year-old pit bull.

Griffith had declared the dog vicious at a hearing a month ago but declined to have him euthanized after animal-rights advocates came to its defense. Instead, she ordered Mickey to be neutered and defanged and gave the Lexus Project, a New York-based animal-rights group and the dog’s trustee, 30 days to find a rehabilitation center or shelter to take him. The judge said the dog could not be put up for adoption.

The Feb. 20 attack left 4-year-old Kevin Vicente with a broken eye socket and jaw, and the boy has months, if not years, of reconstructive surgery ahead of him.

The case touched off a polarizing Internet debate on mercy, blame and animal violence, leading to candlelight vigils and riling up thousands of animal lovers on social media who placed blame with the dog’s owners and child’s baby sitter.

Animal advocates say both the dog and boy are victims and a baby sitter watching the child was negligent in letting him play near the animal. They also argued the owner was fostering aggression by keeping the dog chained up.

As long as no more children are at risk this sounds like a good solution, but we’re still kind of concerned that taxpayer money is being spent on hearings about dogs.

Apparently Mickey’s housing isn’t the only issue that was up for discussion. A lawyer for the dog tried to get the judge to let him keep his teeth:

Griffith also denied a request from a lawyer representing the dog to rescind her order that Mickey be defanged.

Attorney John Schill said it would make more sense to give the $2,500 the procedure costs to the injured child’s family.

Schill said the defanging wouldn’t result in the dog losing his canine teeth, but rather they would be cut down and capped to match the height of the other teeth.

“Kevin’s injuries are so vast and so devastating that $2,500 is really just a drop in the bucket,” Griffith said, adding that she doesn’t want the dog to harm another person.

Do you think the dog should have been allowed to just have his teeth capped? What would you want if it was your child who had been mauled?

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