Family Dog Mauls 2-Year-Old Girl In 'Defense Mode' Following Her 'High-Pitch Scream'

A two-year-old girl was being treated for facial injuries after she was mauled by her grandfather’s pet dog. The incident took place in Flintshire, Wales, on Saturday.

The girl’s grandfather said the victim was mauled by the dog after "banging her finger and screaming while she was playing in a bedroom.” Emergency services responded to the scene and immediately airlifted the unnamed victim to a hospital in Liverpool.

"She is going for a scan today. She has been playing with toys at the hospital and had a Kit Kat for breakfast and she is going to need care over quite a bit of time,” the grandfather told local media Saturday.

Confirming the incident, a North Wales Police spokesman said, "North Wales Police and the Air Ambulance were called to a property at Mynydd Isa around 4.45p.m. local time (11.45 a.m. EDT) following an incident involving a dog attack. Police are carrying out house to house inquiries in the area."

Speaking to the Daily Post on Monday, Naomi Jones, the girl’s mother, said, "She was playing and the dog was there which she has known for a long time. They had been walking freely past each other and my daughter was playing with her grandma - not alone. My daughter screamed and the dog dived straight on her from the high-pitch of the scream. Her dad was instantly on top of the dog and hitting the dog on the head. He had to put his hands into the dog's jaw to pull the jaw off. While this was going on, I was on the phone to the ambulance and then two paramedics arrived about 20 minutes later and police cars and then the helicopter."

"It was completely out of character for the dog. The dog was treated like a baby itself and my daughter has grown up with it and the dog has been around two other children growing up with no problems. But she wasn't on her own with the dog like people have said,” she added.

Jones believes the dog, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, went into a “defense mode” after her daughter started screaming.

"The police officer said the dog went into defense mode because of the high-pitched scream and the dog reacted to that because the grandmother was in the room. The dog has now been taken away by the police to be destroyed. It's tragic for everybody and there were six people in that house who also had to witness what was happening which was so traumatic," Jones said.

Meanwhile, the victim was recovering at the hospital.

“She's eating, drinking and playing and is doing well. She has been really brave about the whole thing,” the victim’s mother said.