Prison possible for owner of dogs that killed girl, 9

The owner of two dogs that mauled a 9-year-old girl to death last week in Baoding, Hebei province, might have committed the crime of causing death by negligence for inadequately managing the dogs, lawyers said.

The girl was badly bitten by two vicious dogs on her way to school at Cuiguzhuang village in Quyang county at round 8 am on Nov 21. She later died of bite wounds after she was sent to a hospital, reported Yanzhao Metropolis Daily.

One dog bit her neck and the other dragged her for over 50 meters, the report said.

"The keeper of the dogs should be suspected of the crime of causing death by negligence, given the situation that he or she didn't watch the dogs carefully or attach any muzzles on the dogs' heads, which resulted in the dogs showing up at a public place and biting someone," Xie Zhenhua, a lawyer with Kingpound Law Firm in Guangzhou, was quoted as saying by news website ThePaper.cn.

According to the country's criminal law, the crime carries sentences of up to three to seven years in prison, Xie said.

The report on the incident by Yanzhao Metropolis Daily said the two dogs are shepherds raised by a local villager who claimed to know nothing about the dogs leaving home. The dogs have been seized by related government departments, it said.

The owner should also bear liability for civil compensation for failing to take safety measures for the animals and thus causing damage to others, Xing Xin, a lawyer with Jinzhou Law Firm in Hunan province, told ThePaper.cn.

According to the publicity department of Quyang county, the girl's family will be given 500,000 yuan ($71,000) by the dogs' owner as compensation. The department added that both parties refused interviews.

"The local public security department is investigating the incident," said Guo Yingkun, a publicity department official said.

Baoding city has been enacting regulations on keeping dogs since 2014. The regulations demand owners to muzzle their dogs and put leashes on them when they go out, according to a document on the city's website.

The regulations, which also forbid citizens to raise ferocious dogs, apply to urban areas, not villages.

"Related government departments should figure out how to regulate the raising of dogs in villages so that tragedies like this will not happen again," said a commentator using the name Guandongke in an article published by the Yanzhao Metropolis Daily. It said most rural areas don't have regulations on keeping dogs.

An online questionnaire about whether ferocious dogs should be kept showed that about 77 percent support a strict policy while 20 percent support the freedom of raising such dogs under careful watch. About 20,000 netizens participated in the survey organized by Toutiao news.