Mom hears growl, turns to see ‘loving’ family dog kill 1-year-old, Ohio cops say

A “loving” family dog attacked a 1-year-old girl, killing her at an Ohio home, officials say.

The attack happened before 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 2, in Dover Township, according to the Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office.

The first 911 call from the home hung up, and dispatchers repeatedly called back until a woman — the mother of the infant — answered and said her baby was just killed by the family dog, Sheriff Orvis Campbell told McClatchy News.

The girl’s mother is a nurse, Campbell said, and despite her best efforts, she knew before first responders arrived that it was too late to save her daughter’s life.

“She did not do CPR because she said the child is definitively deceased and there’s nothing (she) can do,” Campbell said.

After getting off work, the woman went swimming with her daughter, then gave her a bath inside, according to Campbell. But as she was picking laundry up from the bathroom floor, she heard a growl behind her, then turned to see her child in the mouth of the family’s pit bull, Campbell said.

She immediately fought to get her baby away from the dog, suffering defensive wounds as she pried her out of its jaws, then locked the dog in the laundry room, but the damage was already done, according to the sheriff.

Campbell said the girl’s death may have been “instantaneous.” An official cause of death is still being determined by the coroner’s office, he added, but when deputies and firefighters arrived, they say the scene and the injuries were “exactly as (the mother) described” to dispatchers over the phone.

The scene was “very emotional,” Campbell said, not only for the family, but for first responders.

“The injuries are devastating to look at. Of course, far more devastating for a parent to witness it,” he said.

The girl’s father was helping a neighbor in a wooded area nearby, and a deputy rode out on an ATV and found him, told him what happened and brought him back home, according to Campbell.

The father is a veteran, and the dog was “very important to him,” Campbell said. “This was a vet that had gone through dark times in his own life, and this dog he credits for getting him through some of those dark times.”

“But when it took his baby’s life, there was no question” in his mind about what to do next, Campbell said. The father wanted the dog put down, and he said it had to be done that night, and under the supervision of an incident commander, he did so.

This is a “nice family,” Campbell said. “Respectable home, good people.”

The dog had never shown any aggression toward the family, he said, though the mother told deputies that it had, in the past, been aggressive with the other dogs in the home.

Other family members told deputies the dog “was a good, loving pet,” Campbell said, adding that they were “in shock. They couldn’t believe this dog would have done that.”

The investigation is ongoing, but Campbell believes no charges will be brought.

Dover Township is a roughly 50-mile drive south from Akron.

This story was originally published July 8, 2025 at 4:30 PM with the headline "Mom hears growl, turns to see ‘loving’ family dog kill 1-year-old, Ohio cops say."