A San Francisco woman was afraid that her 12-year old son would be attacked by her family dog, so she locked him in the basement. The son, not the dog.

Maureen Faibish said she ordered Nicholas to stay in the basement while she did errands on June 3, the day he was attacked by one or both of the dogs.

She said she was worried about the male dog, Rex, who was acting possessive because the female, Ella, was in heat.

"I put him down there, with a shovel on the door," Faibish said in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. "And I told him: 'Stay down there until I come back.' Typical Nicky, he wouldn't listen to me."

Nicholas apparently found a way to open the basement door.

She claims the female dog was in heat and the male had become aggressive. It sounds pretty fishy to me. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Faibish said, "It's Nicky's time to go. . .When you're born you're destined to go and this was his time."

UPDATE: The more I think about this, the more skeptical I get. If I wanted to keep someone hostage, locking them in the basement and posting guard dogs might be a good way to do it.