I wonder how PETA's handling this travesty

One of the big stories in SF lately has been about a 12 year old boy's horrifying death after being mauled by the family's pit bulls. It's a dreadful story and, to my mind, just got worse when I read this:

Hours before being mauled to death by the family pit bull, 12-year- old Nicholas Faibish had been told to stay in the basement separated from the dogs, said his distraught mother, Maureen Faibish, who called The Chronicle on Saturday, trying to make sense of what she called a 'freak accident.'' 'I put him down there, with a shovel on the door,'' said Faibish, who had left the boy alone with the dogs on June 3 to run some errands. 'He had a bunch of food. And I told him, 'Stay down there until I come back.' Typical Nicky, he wouldn't listen to me.''

I have only one question: Shouldn't it have been the dogs, not the child, that got locked in the basement? Okay, I take it back, I have a second question: Is this an utterly insane household, in which a mother elevates her dogs to a status above her own child's safety? I felt more sick after reading this article than I did after first hearing about that poor boy's death, all alone in an apartment, being ripped apart by two wild animals.