Genital Wounds: Suspected Child Abuse Versus Alleged Pet Dog Bites.

Genital wounds of infants alleged to be inflicted by dogs have been rarely reported. If parents report genital wounds on very young children as being caused by dog bites, it can be very challenging to prove otherwise. We report here the case of a one-and-a-half-year-old male infant whose prepuce was avulsed from his penis. His parents insisted that their pet dog had attacked the boy and bitten off the prepuce while they were absent. However, based on the characteristics of the wound, we concluded that the boy had been abused using an unidentified sharp instrument. The grounds for our judgment from the perspective of forensic medicine are presented herein.