Lexi Branson, four, who was mauled to death by a family pet dog. Photo: AP

A four-year-old mauled to death by a pet dog was yesterday described by neighbours as a happy, sweet little girl.

The dog, believed to be a French bull mastiff, was the family’s pet and had been brought from a rescue home according to people who knew the family.

The animal died shortly after the attack which happened just after noon on Tuesday in Rowena Court in the town of Mountsorrell, between Loughborough and Leicester, said police.

Lexi Branson died in hospital after being attacked by bulldog Mulan in the living room of her home in Mountsorrel, Leicestershire.

Her mother Jodi Hudson frantically tried to pull the dog off her young daughter during the sustained attack and ended up stabbing the animal to death with a kitchen knife in the flat in Rowena Court.

Lexi, who had been off school sick, was taken to Nottingham’s Queen Medical Centre but doctors were unable to save her following the unprovoked attack.

Mother stabbed animal to death with kitchen knife

Police said the rescue dog had been with the family for just two months after they got the animal from Willow Rehoming Centre, which shares a site with Orchard Kennels in Barrow-upon-Soar, Leicestershire.

The rehoming centre has a contract with Leicester City Council to provide kennelling for stray dogs.

The little girl lived with her mother Jodi Hudson in the flat and was described as always having a smile on her face by neighbours.

Leicestershire Police said officers were called to a flat in the street at about 12.15pm following a report of a young girl being attacked by a dog.

Glennis Goddard, who has lived in the quiet cul-de-sac of small blocks of flats for 27 years, said: “Their pet dog has attacked a little girl, Lexi. It’s a terrible shock. She was a sweet little thing and used to run round here on a bike and knock on my windows. She used to play with our cats, outside. She wasn’t very big, only a little thin thing.”

Ms Goddard said the dog had been no trouble at all previously and could not understand why it had apparently turned.

She said she had been stroking the dog just two days before after seeing it out with Ms Hudson.

“Something must have snapped him,” she said. “I was talking to Jodi down across the lane and she was saying ‘he’s a lovely dog, I love him’ and he let me stroke him. I can’t understand why he went off like that.”

Ms Goddard said the little girl and her mother would often be seen out together walking the dog, but that generally the animal was “kept inside”.

Of Lexi, she said: “You’ve only got to look at her and she’d got a big smile on her face.”

Ms Goddard’s partner and carer Oliver Temperell said: “She had a little pink scooter and she’d go round and round the flats. She’d come up to our flat, tap on the window. She was very happy.