4-Year-Old Michigan Girl Killed By Her New Puppy

A day full of joy turned to tragedy in the blink of an eye.

A 4-year-old Detroit girl was killed by her new dog, just moments after it’d been delivered to her door.

The girl, Kiyana McNeal, had lost her Doberman ‘Willow’ two months ago. This new dog, which is guessed to be either a Doberman Pinscher or Doberman mix, was supposed to be a replacement.

They’d found the new three-year old pup for sale in Illinois. The seller drove the dog to the McNeal’s house himself, and stayed for over half an hour introducing his K-9 to Kiyana and her mother.

Within minutes of the unidentified man’s departure, Kiyana tried to give the dog a treat. No one can say for sure what triggered the animal, but it almost immediately lunged for Kiyana’s neck.

Her mother, Jacey McDeal Wolkins, fought to stop the attack, and later had to be taken to the hospital for injuries to her head and hands. The previous owner, the man who’d just left, sped back to the house as soon as he heard what happened and tried CPR:

“He was really distraught,” a neighbor told reporters. “You can imagine it, seemed that he was crying and he was really bad. You can imagine how he would feel.”

But Kiyana didn’t make it. The dog was taken by animal services.

The incident is sure to become a spark plug in the debate over dangerous breeds. While the most popularly maligned breed are pit bulls, Doberman Pincscher’s occasionally crop up on the same lists. The McNeal’s town did not have any restrictions of dog breeds.

But for now, the community’s focus is on the family. “It’s something nobody should see. Nobody,” a different neighbor said. “You just don’t expect nothing like that to happen to a child.”