Dogs truly are amazing creatures. Anyone who’s has ever spent an extended amount of time with one can attest to the fact that they share a closer bond with humans than virtually any other animal. Loyal to a fault, more often than not unduly kind, and the most determined of protectors, there’s a reason they’ve been man’s best friend since as far back as one might care to go. Every day we hear stories of how dogs have saved lives or warned people against forthcoming dangers. That’s in no small part down to the fact they can so often detect things we can’t.
When parents Benjamin and Hope Jhired a babysitter to look after their newborn, Finn, their dog, Killian, instantly realized something was wrong. He would snarl at the nanny whenever she got too close to Finn, as though he instinctually knew she had no place beside a vulnerable member of his family Benjamin and Hope needed to find a nanny to watch over their young child. After doing their due diligence, they thought they’d found the right person. Five months after the sitter was hired, however, the parents began to notice a change in their dog’s behavior. Benjamin reportedly: “He started getting real defensive at first, he would stand in between her and our son, and then gradually turned into more aggression towards her. That’s when Hope really started to notice something’s wrong.”
He later went on to say: “He’s a very personable dog. He’s easy going, an eighty-pound lap dog, so for him to show aggression towards anyone is a sign to use that something’s wrong, because he never shows aggression.” With Hope’s suspicions growing, the couple decided to set an iPhone to record background noise. They left the phone under the couch for seven and a half hours in order to document what was going on when they weren’t around. When Hope played the recording back it was, in her words, “a nightmare”. “For seven and a half hours my son cried nearly the entire time. She was cursing at him, calling him horrible names, and the thing about it is it came for no reason. He wasn’t acting up, he hadn’t been crying until she left him alone in his crib for hours, or, of course, the physical abuse.”
Benjamin and Hope also heard “slap noise” over the audio, and sounds that alluded to the idea that Finn was being shaken. After pleading to assault and battery, the judge sentenced the babysitter to the maximum of three years in prison. In their state, child abusers must add their names to a statewide child abuse registry, which is meant to prevent them from ever again working with children. Dear readers, we are republishing this story to raise awareness about child abuse.
