Newborn Baby Mauled To Death By Dog; Pet Owner Charged

A dog owner in New Zealand was charged Friday after his pet attacked a newborn, resulting in the child's death.

The incident took place in October when the 1-day-old baby was at his Hamilton home. The newborn's mother was in the bathroom when the dog -- a large Rottweiler Bear -- mauled the baby and dragged him to the garden, the New Zealand Herald reported. The canine also tried to bury the child.

It wasn't clear how the dog reached the newborn's house.

The newborn, identified as Jaxon Johnson, died in Waikato Hospital 24 hours after being attacked by the dog.

The owner of the canine, a 21-year-old man, was charged with owning a dog that causes serious injury/death to any person, an offense against Section 58 of the Dog Control Act 1996.

The identity of the owner, who appeared in the Hamilton District Court on Friday, was not revealed.

The child's grandparents, Vera and Viktor Zabiyaka, met the newborn only once before he died, the New Zealand Herald reported.

"We got a phone call about 10 o'clock on Sunday night from [Jaxon's mother's] midwife at Waikato Hospital who advised us to go there," Vera said. "She told us the baby was 'beautiful' and a 'good' boy ... he had been bitten but he was still alive. We didn't even know that the baby had been born at that stage."

Jaxon's mother was "devastated and crushed" about the death, police said at the time.

"If only I could go back to this day with [you] still in my tummy, my son," the mother of the baby wrote in a social media post, with a picture of her sitting on the grass looking toward a river.

In a recent incident in Minnesota, a family dog fatally mauled a 14-year-old boy. The teenager, identified as Dion Bush, was attending to the German Shepherds raised in his family's farm when the attack took place.

When the teenager did not return for hours, his father informed authorities about his missing son. Deputies arrived at the scene and found the boy mauled to death.