Police dog bitten by poisonous snake during search for missing infant

A K9 for the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office is recovering after getting bitten by a water moccasin while trying to find an infant who is missing from South Florida.

The police dog name “Phi” was in the Everglades assisting the FBI in the ongoing search for Andrew Caballeiro when he was bitten by the snake, the sheriff’s office posted Thursday on its Facebook page.

Baby Andrew, who would now be just over a month old, has been the subject of a statewide Amber Alert since late January and the child remains missing. On Jan. 28, his mother, grandmother and greatgrandmother were found shot and killed inside their home in south Miami-Dade

County. The infant, then just over a week old, was missing.

Investigators found surveillance video showing the child’s father, Ernesto Caballeiro, leaving the home with his son. A day later, Caballeiro, 49, was found upstate, along a rural road in Pasco County, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

There was no sign of

Baby Andrew at the scene where his father died — or anywhere else.

Except for the news about the K9’s ordeal, there has been little news about any progress in the search for Baby Andrew.

On Friday, the 1-month anniversary since the triple murder was discovered, the Miami Herald reported that Baby Andrew’s mother had brought the child to the home of Ernesto Caballeiro, from whom she was separated, two days before the killings, because they had been staying with relatives who were ill and she didn’t want him to get sick.

The mother’s aunt, Reina Valdés, told the newspaper she still believes someone has Baby Andrew.

“The family is hopeful because the work that the FBI and the police have done has been very extensive and there’s no evidence that suggests that the child is dead,” she told the Herald.

As for the search dog bitten by the snake, the Pasco County Sheriff ’s Office says an antivenom was administered and Phi’s progress is being monitored.

“His prognosis for recovery is good,” the agency’s posting said.