Mother of the Year

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- The mother of Nicholas Faibish, the 12-year old San Francisco boy killed in a dog mauling attack, says she left the child locked in the basement to protect him from the dogs.

Maureen Faibish tells Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle she used a shovel on the door to lock her son in the basement while she went out to run errands.

"Typical Nicky," Mrs. Faibish told the Chronicle, "he wouldn't listen to me."

Faibish says she locked her child in the basement because the female dog Ella was in heat. She believes Nicholas got out of the basement and interrupted Ella and Rex, the family's male dog, while they were mating.

"My younger dog was in heat and anyone who came near her, Rex saw as a threat," Faibish told the Chronicle. "He may have been trying to mate. It was a freak accident. It was just the heat of the moment."

She sounds all broken up about the brutal death of her son. This woman should be shot.