US father shoots dog, slits stomach to retrieve son's finger

In a bizarre incident, a father in the US shot dead his family dog and sliced open its stomach to retrieve his son's finger that was bitten off and swallowed by the canine.

Luis Brignoni (41) a landscaper in Bradenton, Fliorida, on Friday had to experience the horror when one of the family dogs bit off his son's little finger and swallowed it. Brignoni rushed out to his fenced backyard with a gun and killed the dog, cut its stomach open, and retrieved the finger, carefully sending it with his bleeding son aboard a helicopter to a St Petersburg hospital.

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The child, Fernando Brignoni (11) was later transferred to Tampa General Hospital, where doctors were unable to re-attach his finger during emergency surgery, but the boy is doing well, his dad said.

"You don't know what you will do for your child," the elder Brignoni was quoted as saying. "You don't know where you get the strength from." Brignoni, who said he had been a hunter for many years, said his son had attempted to pet the caged dog, a Malamute-wolf mix named Sassy, on Friday when the animal grabbed his hand.

Hearing screams, Fernando's brother, Luis (13) hit the dog on the head so it would let go. When Fernando finally got free, the finger had been entirely bitten off, and the dog who had swallowed it was running around the yard.

Brignoni said, "I got my gun and I popped him."u00a0