Dog scalps small girl

Four-year-old Johanna Rangel of Corning is in stable condition Tuesday a day after undergoing surgery for a dog bite that scalped a section of her head.

Rangel was outside playing with her brothers and sisters on Rio Del Rey Court around 8 p.m., when the dog ran out of the owner's house and jumped on the little girl, knocking her to the ground and biting a 3-inch by 3-inch piece of scalp off her head, said Corning police Sgt. Craig Bassett.

"There was so much blood," said Rangel's brother Salvador Virgen. "All the neighbors came running out when they heard her screaming."

The owner of the 1-year-old American bulldog, who declined to give his name and the Corning police would not disclose, bit the child is devastated.

The owner said the door to his house was open and the dog ran out to where Rangel was playing with the other children.

"I just don't know what happened," he said. "My dog knows those kids and has never acted like that before."

Rangel was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Sacramento and then to California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco where doctors reattached her scalp, Bassett reported.

"The injury was to the right side of her head, on top but towards the front," Virgen said.

The brown and white dog, which is current on its rabies vaccination, is under 10-day quarantine at the Corning Animal Shelter.

"After I put the dog in the police car, I was so afraid to go and talk to the little girl's family, the owner said. He was in tears. "This was so out of character for my dog. But all I care about is the little girl. She is so small and it was so terrible."

Bassett said the dog owner will be cited for allowing the dog to run free, and a report will be sent to the Tehama County District Attorney's Office for review.

"But there was no criminal intent in this incident, and we have never received complaints concerning this dog before. It was just a bad accident," Bassett said.