confirmed the dog had been removed from the Basingstoke St property<\/a>.<\/p>\nHe said police were in close contact with Christchurch City Council animal control as they continued their inquiries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis includes speaking with those who live at the home, as well as providing them with support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christchurch East MP Reuben Davidson told RNZ the death was a tragedy for the family and the wider community.<\/p>\n
Councillor for the Burwood Ward Kelly Barber said his first thoughts were with the child\u2019s family.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very sad situation, and my first thoughts were with the family and how devastated they must be at the loss of their child,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also hope there is something we can learn from the ongoing police investigation that reduces the likelihood of this ever happening again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Safekids, the national injury prevention service of Starship Children\u2019s Health, issued a statement about the death.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of the tamaiti in Christchurch, and our heartfelt condolences go out to their wh\u0101nau, friends and community at this incredibly difficult time,\u201d the agency said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are no words that can ease the pain of losing a child.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur thoughts are with everyone grieving such a devastating loss.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His parents, Greg Watson and Jordan Doherty, have expressed their shock and asked for time to process what\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[113801,74,181192,1975,89,682,46919,4487,634,6179,9219,5504,305,42,1345,3375,43,10142,3766,2744,281423,19795,165,61,13835,40,38,41,39,11787,20838,15358,281424,1299],"class_list":["post-570752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-1yearold","tag-after","tag-aranui","tag-at","tag-attack","tag-being","tag-bitten","tag-christchurch","tag-death","tag-died","tag-dog","tag-following","tag-have","tag-headlines","tag-home","tag-killed","tag-news","tag-paid","tag-parents","tag-pay","tag-sonnycharles","tag-sunshine","tag-their","tag-to","tag-toddler","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-tragic","tag-tribute","tag-watson","tag-wee","tag-who"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}