Toddler recovering after Rottweiler attack

LONDON, Sep 27 (Reuters) A two-year-old boy was recovering in hospital today after being savaged by a Rottweiler dog, just days after a baby girl died in a similar attack.

The boy, Harvey Lawrence, underwent surgery to treat bite wounds to his face and body.

Police said the dog had attacked him in Middleton-on-Sea, near Bognor Regis in West Sussex, on Monday.

Media reports said the attack took place while he was at his grandmother's home.

''The boy was bleeding from his neck, shoulder and face -- one bite had gone through his cheek and into bone,'' neighbour Mike Pepper told the Daily Mirror.

''When the paramedics took his clothes off, there were bite marks all over his body.'' Pepper said he had rushed to the boy's home after hearing screams and had beaten off the dog with a hammer.

Police said they had put down the dog with the owner's consent.

Tim Taylor, the paediatrician treating Lawrence at St Richard's Hospital in Chichester, told the BBC the boy was sitting up in bed and should make a good recovery after surgery on Monday.

''He had very extensive lacerations, affecting his face, scalp, upper body and arms and was in a state of real distress.'' On Saturday, five-month-old Cadey-Lee Deacon died after she was savaged by her family's two Rottweilers in Leicester.

The dogs had attacked the child while the family were moving furniture out of the living quarters of their pub, the Rocket in the New Parks area of the city.

Robert Mugford of the Animal Behaviour Centre told the BBC it was a coincidence that both attacks had been by Rottweilers.

''The Rottweiler is an unremarkable breed of dog. It is not at all the caricature depicted by Hollywood of a devil dog.'' ''The breeds that are most likely to bite children are Golden Retrievers, Border Collies and German Shepherds,'' he added.

He said 30,000 people were bitten by dogs in Britain each year but that deaths from dog attacks were much rarer, fewer than one a year.

REUTERS AB PM1514