Dog eats flesh off girl’s head, cuts off tongue of its owner trying to protect victim in Oyo

A five-year-old girl, identified as Moridiyat Rauf, has been hospitalized after she was brutally attacked by a dog in Ibadan, Oyo State.

The unfortunate incident occurred when the girl went to greet the owner of the dog, an elderly woman, at her house at Adagbada Arola area of Apete, on Wednesday.

Nigerian Tribune reports that the girl went into the house with the belief that the animal had been secured in its cage.

However, unknown to the woman, identified simply as Mrs Esther, the dog had somehow loosened the padlock used to hold the cage, and as the girl came in, it pounced on her and bit off the hair and flesh covering her head.

The dog owner reportedly struggled to extricate the girl from the dog but was unsuccessful, making her shield the badly injured Moridiya with her body.

Angry at the move, the dog descended on its owner, bit off her tongue and tore off a big chunk of flesh off of her face.

The girl’s brother, who spoke on the incident, said: “I heard the piercing cry of my sister and went to trace where she was. As I stood at the gate of the woman’s house, I was shocked by what I saw. The mummy shielded my sister with her body.

I started shouting ‘Dog! Dog!’ I shook the gate. I picked stones and climbed the fence, but the dog held on to my sister and its owner.

Other people started coming to find a way of rescuing them. We were looking for a weapon that would subdue it. Eventually, elders got in, killed the dog and quickly rushed my sister to the hospital.”

When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer of the Oyo State Police Command, SP Adewale Osifeso, said that hoodlums capitalised on the unfortunate incident and vandalised the home of the dog owner.