Posted Aug. 20, 2008 – It’s no wonder the pit bull has a PR problem. All it takes is two vicious attacks in less than two weeks against small children to bolster arguments that the breed is a dangerous monster with no place in a community setting.

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On Tuesday, James Hendrix, peered into his neighbor’s yard just in time to witness a large pit bull ripping a toddler’s scalp from his head. The dog was owned by the neighbor who runs a day care from the home. She had taken a moment to use the bathroom and apparently that’s the 18-month-old wandered through a back door and into the pit bull pen out back when the care giver turned her head.

Ida Hendrix told The Baltimore Sun that it was her husband’s screams that made the dog drop the child. James Hendrix then grabbed the boy and applied pressure to stop the bleeding.

The bites were so bad that the child's scalp was showing," she said. He was taken to Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, the Sun reports. "Surgery was required to close the head injury," said Sgt. Fred Budnick, Aberdeen Police Department spokesman. 

The owner told police that the dog, an 18-month-old had interacted with children in the past without incident, police said. "As far as we know, there have been no other incidents reported with this dog," Budnick said.

Police say the daycare is licensed and no one will face criminal charges.

Meanwhile, the 6-year-old Alaska girl attacked by a family pit bull last week died Monday after she was taken off life support. Isis Krieger went into an irreversible vegetative state after the dog bit her neck and snapped it, leaving her brain dead, Anchorage Police and the girl's family told the Anchorage Daily News.

I'm sick," said Wanda Injasoulian, the girl’s great-grandmother, after learning that Isis had been taken off life support Monday afternoon. "I'm completely, totally devastated, and the thing that hurts me most is that I wasn't there when she went to Heaven.

Isis’ dad had been deployed to Iraq, and the family waited for him to come home before detaching the machines. Like the Baltimore-area child, At Isis was in the care of a babysitter at the time of the attack. The dog was killed after being surrendered to Anchorage Animal Care and Control.