12:47pm UK, Friday February 10, 2006

A Tanzanian mother went into hysterics when she found her six-month-old baby suckling on a dog.

She had left the boy on a mat while she went to peg out clothes in the yard of her house in Dar Es Salaam.

180 alsatian dog

Unlikely baby milk source

When she came back, she found him sucking milk from a dog.

She screamed and ran round to her brother's house to ask what to do.

However, her brother managed to convince her the dog's milk was harmless.

"Since that day the baby is doing well and hasn't had any diarrhoea or any signs of sickness," he was quoted as saying.

Another relative who saw the incident was equally unmoved.

"The baby was satisfied, since his belly was full, and his lips had traces of milk," he told the Uhuru newspaper.