After their five-year-old son Kash was bit by the beloved family dog on April 22, Kim Zolciak, 39, and her husband Kroy Biermann, 32, have decided they’re keeping the guilty animal! At the time of the scary incident, Kim and Kroy didn’t release many details. But speaking to People in a recent interview, the couple admitted the dog that attacked their little boy was their very own rescue dog, Sinn. And the animal nearly blinded Kash! Click here to see adorable pics of celeb dads with their kids.
“It was a like a bad dream,” Kim told the mag of the day Kash was bit. “Our dog Sinn is heavily, heavily trained. Kash is his favorite. It made absolutely no sense to any of us. This is nothing I ever thought I’d be dealing with in my life.” The adorable five-year-old ended up in the hospital for four days and he suffered a bloody scratch that was just a millimeter away from his eye. What happened was, Kash and Sinn were playing outside together along with Kim and Kroy’s six-year-old son KJ. Kroy was also with them, using a leaf blower in the yard.
“Sinn doesn’t like the blower, so he’s already in high alert,” Kroy explains on the Nov. 10 episode of Don’t Be Tardy, which documents the aftermath of Sinn’s bite. “My back was to the dogs and the boys. I hear Kash be loud, and then I hear barking. And then I hear Kash screaming, he’s crying very loud. At that point I think he’s scared, but then I realize Sinn bit Kash. He’s dripping blood everywhere on his shirt. He pulls his hands down and there’s multiple lacerations, I can’t see his eye. I knew it was a very dire emergency.”
So after all of that, why keep the dog that severely injured their son? Apparently, it was no easy decision. In fact, Kroy’s first instinct was to get rid of him for good. “I hated Sinn,” Kroy said. “I genuinely felt a deep rage for what he had done to my son. Sinn was always a good dog, extremely obedient and protective and not at all aggressive. He’s hyper-active and hyper-sensitive but wants to work and loves to be commanded. I love my dog, and nothing like this had ever happened to me before. But it’s my son. I don’t love anything more than my flesh and blood. I thought, ‘I don’t want to see the dog — he doesn’t get a second chance.’”
However, Kash had formed an “incredible bond” with Sinn over the years. “Sinn and Kash have been best friends since the day we got Sinn,” Kim revealed. “Kash is an absolute animal lover, and Sinn is definitely his favorite, without a shadow of a doubt. That’s why it was extra hard.” Kroy added, “Kash loves him. We didn’t want him to live a life with a phobia of dogs. We wanted him to understand it wasn’t his fault.”
Kash, on the other hand, apparently felt unfazed by the attack. In fact, he even asked to see Sinn while he was in the hospital! “He saw a service dog in the hospital and he hopped up out of the bed. He was all over the dog, petting the dog and loving on the dog and kissing the dog with no inhibitions,” Kim remembered. “It was unbelievable.” After speaking with nearly a dozen behavioral specialists, child psychologists, and dog-bite survivors — as well as evaluating Kash’s moods and anxiety levels — the Biermann’s decided to keep Sinn.
“If Kash ever looked at me and said that he didn’t want to be around Sinn or showed any hesitation, then he wouldn’t be here,” Kim made sure to stress. “We love Sinn, he’s part of our family, but our children will always come first without a doubt.” On top of that, Kim and Kroy realized that Kash wasn’t “attacked,” but rather “bitten” “That was a turning point for me,” Kim said, revealing they watched security camera footage of the incident. “It was not an attack — he nipped at Kash’s face in an attempt to communicate with Kash. Not that that is an excuse. But he took off running. It wasn’t as if he was attacking. Sinn knew he had done wrong.”
While Sinn used to have plenty of freedom at home though, now the animal is closely watched and monitored. “Now his crate is locked with a key that only Kim and I have the keys to. He’s supervised all the time when he’s out. And the only time he runs around free is in the fenced-in dog run we built for him the backyard, which gives him about 400 sq. ft. of grassed space,” Kroy said, adding that he sometimes wears a muzzle as well.
Tell us, HollywoodLifers — are you shocked Kim and Kroy are keeping the dog that hurt their son?