Woman Mauled to Death by Her Dogs While Entering Own Home

A woman has died after being attacked by three of her own dogs as she entered her house.

María Beatriz Coronel, a 47-year-old mother of two living in Las Lomitas, northern Argentina, was found lying in her front yard with major injuries to her arms and neck on Saturday evening, local newspaper La Mañana reported.

"A neighbor next door heard noises and barking and got up, approached the wall with the neighbor and saw what happened. He did what he could, but it was too late," Cristóbal Torres, the chief general commissioner of Regional Unit No. 5 of Las Lomitas, said.

In the U.S., around 4 million people are bitten by dogs every year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, with one in five requiring medical attention. Deaths from dog attacks are thankfully rare: between 1999 and 2020, 33 people died each year on average.

Larger breeds like pit bulls are often associated with more-deadly canine attacks. Between 2005 and 2019, 521 people were killed by dogs in the U.S.; 346 of these deaths, or 66 percent, were caused by pit bulls. However, many argue that these dogs are not more aggressive, but more likely to cause harm than a smaller canine in the case of aggression.

The dogs in Argentina are thought to have mobbed the woman as she crossed the front yard to enter her home. She was tended to by emergency services, but had no vital signs by the time she was taken to the hospital. The woman is thought to have died from cardiorespiratory arrest.

Her three dogs were of an unspecified mixed breed. The animals were found by veterinarian Celestina Galban to be responsible for the attack after bloodstains were found on their bodies.

"Whilst we know that aggression has a genetic component, to say that a whole breed is dangerous is a very sweeping statement and doesn't really reflect all dogs," Lynda Taylor previously told Newsweek. She is a university lecturer on applied canine behavior from the Depend on Dogs website and the author of the book Fear in Dogs: Theories, Protocols and Solutions.

"In the U.K., breed-specific legislation has some serious flaws. It assumes that all dogs of a certain breed are dangerous and relies heavily on the 'nature' side of the nature versus nurture argument," Taylor said.

"Sadly, the damage done by a very large dog such as an XL bully can be devastating compared to a bite with the same intent from a much smaller dog. And because of this, those who choose to have them in their life must take responsibility for both their dog's safety and that of the general public," Taylor added.

The Las Lomitas dogs are now in custody until the judge sees what will happen. Torres said. "As the minutes passed, they calmed down, but who knows why they acted that way and attacked their owner?"

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