Toledo Mom Arrested After 4-Year-Old Son's Foot Was Chewed by Pit Bull

TOLEDO, Ohio – Police have charged the mother of a 4-year-old boy whose foot was mauled by the family's pit bull puppy and had to be amputated.

Martina Jennings, 23, of Toledo, was arraigned Monday in Toledo Municipal Court on a felony charge of child endangering. She was being held on a $10,000 bond. She did not enter a plea.

Jennings took her son to Toledo Hospital on Friday morning because his foot was bleeding and told authorities she saw blood on the dog's face and chest, Lucas County Dog Warden Tom Skeldon said. Doctors amputated the foot.

The boy has no feeling below the waist because of spina bifida, so he did not know the dog was biting him, Skeldon said.

The black-and-white puppy was destroyed.

Skeldon said he questioned the puppy's ability to cause so much damage because its teeth weren't mature.

"And if he did do it, it had to take him a long, long time," he said. "So who's checking on this kid?"

The phone rang unanswered at Jennings' home Saturday. Her other children, aged 2 and 8, are with a relative but still in temporary custody of Lucas County Children's Services, said Dean Sparks, the agency's executive director.

"If you've got little kids, don't have vicious dogs," Sparks said.