Could It Happen to You?: Baby Aj's Story of Being Taken from His Crib by the Family Dog Dakota

Publisher Marketing: You may have heard of the infamous dog snatches baby case that happened in Kentucky in July 2009. Just three days old, Baby AJ was fast asleep in his crib after a morning feeding. With his parents downstairs preparing for the rest of the day, Dakota and Nikita, two of the family dogs, snuck upstairs and opened the back door to the bedroom. Dakota then took AJ out of his crib and proceeded out back into the woods, carrying AJ in her mouth. The mother, Chrissie, is a British citizen and the father, Michael, was born in Indiana. Together they give a brief account of their lives prior to the accident followed by excruciating details of the accident itself including the 15 minutes it took to find their son and the nightmare they had to endure afterwards. Starting with the accident and the 911 call, followed by the emergency room and AJ's stay in Pediatric Intensive Care, Michael and Chrissie give a very personal account of the feelings and emotions they experienced along with pictures from their private collection. Although the story generated a massive media storm and immediately made national news, the public was generally shielded from the private details the couple had to deal with in the background. Michael and Chrissie intimately share those private details including social services and Sheriff investigations that ultimately resulted in information brought before the grand jury and formal child neglect charges filed against the couple. Michael and Chrissie gives you a chance to step into their shoes and experience what it was like to not only live through a horrifying accident of this nature but for all of the parents out there with newborns, wonder whether or not, Could This Happen To You? Contributor Bio:  Smith, Michael G Michael G. Smith is an early-retired chemist. His poetry and essays have been published or are forthcoming in many literary journals and anthologies, including Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, the Kerf, Nimrod, The Santa Fe Literary Review, Sulphur River Literary Review, Superstition Review, and other literary journals and anthologies. A chapbook, The Dark is Different in Reverse, was published by Bitterzoet Press in 2013. NO SMALL THINGS, a book of poetry, was published by Tres Chicas Books in 2014. He has had writing residencies at Jentel (Banner, WY) and with the Spring Creek Project (Oregon State University) at Shotpouch Cabin and the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest. He lives in Santa Fe, NM.