A 7-year-old Detroit boy is recuperating after being mauled by a pit bull that broke loose and rushed a group of children in Warren.

The child, Khalil Rocks, was rushed to St. John Hospital, Detroit, on Wednesday where he received several stitches to close severe bite wounds to his head, legs and arms.

The boy escaped more serious injuries and even death, according to witnesses, when a neighbor saw what was happening outside 8702 Maxwell and grabbed a flower pot and struck the dog in the head, forcing it to let go of the child.

"The boy is recovering today at home and neighbors tell us it was out of character for the dog to do something like this," Warren Detective Lt. Michael Torey said Friday.

Even more unfortunate for the boy, police said, was that it was the second time he had been mauled by a vicious dog. He was attacked by a pit bull and severely bitten in Detroit when he was 3.

Torey said the latest incident occurred at 3:15 p.m. Wednesday in the 8700 block of Maxwell. Neighbors said the dog broke loose from a chain restraint in an unfenced yard and ran after a group of children.

"Khalil fell down and the dog attacked and bit him for several minutes," Torey said. "A next-door neighbor, Timothy Anderson, saw this happening and ran over and slugged the dog in the head with a flower pot."

The dog then ran off to his back yard. Warren firefighters attended to the boy and then rushed him to the hospital.

The owner of the dog told Warren Detective Kevin Borycz that the dog was a house dog. Neighbors told police the only problem they had had with the dog was that he barked often and loudly, but they had never seen him roaming the neighborhood.

The dog has valid license tags through 2011.

"The homeowner was emotionally upset and said the dog had never done this before," Torey said. "She said she once had a fence around her yard, but the city made her take it down for some reason."

Torey said the dog's owner could be charged with harboring a vicious animal, a four-year felony. The owner said the dog's owner also could be charged with being neglectful.

The dog is at the Macomb County Animal Shelter where it will be kept for 10 days. The owner said she doesn't care if the dog is euthanized.

Torey said police don't know if the children may have been harassing the dog.

This pit bull attack is just the latest in a series of incidents involving the breed in Macomb County this summer.

* On June 2, a 59-year-old bike rider from Warren was attacked in Sterling Heights by four pit bulls. Police credited witnesses for rescuing the man on the sidewalk along Metropolitan Parkway, west of Mound Road, when the four loose dogs charged and chased him. The dogs were later destroyed.

* In mid-June, Sterling Heights police killed one pit bull and removed another from a home shortly after the dogs mauled a woman walking her two dogs in a residential neighborhood. The victim, Kathy Novak, was treated at Henry Ford Macomb Hospital in Clinton Township for bites. Novak was walking her two dogs in the 36000 block of Tulane Street when the pit bulls jumped a fence and attacked Novak’s two cocker spaniels that were on a leash, police said.

* Just a week later, A Clinton Township police officer shot and killed a pit bull that attacked him. The officer, whose name was not released, shot the dog when he lunged at the officer at least twice, according to police.