IRONTON — A 3-year-old boy was injured Saturday afternoon when a neighbor’s dog bit him on the face.

The boy was in the neighbor’s house when the dog bit him in the face, Laura Brown, acting health commissioner for the City of Ironton, said.

The incident happened at a house on 11th street in Ironton.

The dog’s owner told Brown that the child may have touched the dog in a sore spot when it bit him. The dog is an Australian Shepherd mix and is old, Brown said.

“He wasn’t brutalizing the dog or anything,” she said. “It could have been arthritic.”

The dog had not bitten anyone in the past.

The child suffered lacerations to the cheek and area above the ear. He was admitted to a hospital over the weekend and released Sunday.

“The boy’s at home and doing real well,” Brown said.

The dog will be kept in quarantine for 10 days while both the Ironton and the Lawrence County dog wardens will watch it carefully, Brown said.

If the dog does not show signs of disease, the owners can opt to keep the dog or have it euthanized.

“I think the owners have decided not to keep the dog,” she said. “That could change.”

Brown said the boy’s parents and the dog owners are friends. The owners are fearful that the dog could bite again, she said.

“The owners are very upset and the parents are upset,” Brown said.

The name of the boy, his parents and the dog owners have not been released.