Dale Johnson was getting ready for work when he heard screams, looked over his fence, and saw a dog shaking what appeared to be a small child 2 yards over. He tells Fox 13 Tampa that he jumped the fence and ran to the attack. "I basically tackled the Rottweiler to the ground, held him in place, began choking him and used my two fingers to stick them down the nostril of the dog's nose. It causes an involuntary almost choking or coughing, a brief hesitation, just enough to allow me to kind of get my hands in place to give a little movement where I can get the leg removed from the mouth".
How did we get here? A mom was in her backyard with her baby and her puppy. A Rottweiler who was not chained ran into her yard to attack the puppy. She put her baby down on the blanket to save her puppy when the dog then switched targets and bite down on the baby and started trying to shake it to death. The infant was rushed to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital where he is expected to make a full recovery.
The un named mother says "I can tell you with 100% certainty there would not have been any other outcome besides my baby's death had Dale not intervened when he did".
Dale says "My brother was attacked by a German shepherd when we were small and so, I remember doing research in case anyone I knew was attacked by a dog. Turns out that my brother being attacked led to me saving this baby. Kinda crazy when you think about it".