4-Year-Old In Critically Injured In Attack By Family's Dog

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A 4-year-old girl is in critical condition after she was attacked by her family's pit bull Wednesday.

Katlyn Kaylin Flowers' grandmother said she was playing with the dog in their yard when the the dog snapped, biting the girl on the head, neck and hand.

"She so small. The dog just grabbed her and bit her," Karen Flowers said Thursday. "He slung her and ... dragged her on the ground."

According to the police report, the attack lasted several minutes, the pit bull throwing Kaylin's tiny body around the back yard.

Kaylin was rushed to Shands-Jacksonville, where she had emergency surgery.

"There are no skull fractures at all, but there are teeth marks in the skull," Flowers' said. "She's doing better. She's a fighter."

Pit bull The family said they don't know why the dog attacked as he had never showed signs of aggression before.

The dog was confiscated by Jacksonville Animal Care and Control, where he will remain for 10 days.

"They are brought here and held in a quarantine area to check temperament and health issues," Animal Control's David DeWitt told Channel 4's Jennifer Bauer.

While all dog breeds have the potential to attack, experts say rottweilers, pit bulls and German shepherds are the most common breeds for deadly attacks.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while almost half of all children are bitten by a dog at some point, kids aged 5 to 9 are most at risk for dog attacks. Statistics show that half those attacks occur at home or with a familiar dog.

The most important thing in this article, in my opinion, is not the breed of the dog, except to say that it is a large, strong breed.

The message here is that no child who is under the age at which they can understand NOT to play with a dog in open, fenced areas should be allowed to do so. Dogs in fenced areas that have enough room to run, but feel protective of the fenceline boundary are not safe for children. Period. Even a dog that would never bite a child could easily run over or into the child. My mother got her leg broken by our Belgian Sheepdog that way. And she had no teeth, so she might gum you to death, but the force of a charging dog on your body can do some damage.

No, the breed of dog is important too, in this story, the kid was critically injured and there is a type of dog that routinely does this kind of damage, and it ain't Labradors, and it ain't Yorkies.

Most kids grow up with a family dog. My point was, no matter the size of the dog, they need to learn how to play with dogs. I am not following you that a dog that barks at the garbage man and other boundary threats in the life of a dog is a threat to children ~inside~ the boundary who venture towards the fence. Kids and dogs play in back yards every day, and most don't get mauled. Really territorial dogs are a threat to intruding children, yes.

I don't think you are correct, to be honest. A four-year-old kid who is running around the backyard with a large-breed dog isn't safe from injury. I agree it isn't Yorkies, but a large Lab (80 to 100lbs or more), in a playful mood could run right over your child. In my opinion, you should never let that happen unless you are standing by your child.

Just because you don't own a Rottweiler, German Shepherd, Mastiff, Doberman Pincher, or Pit Bull doesn't mean you should let your toddler or small child run around the back yard with a dog double his/her weight.

As a mother, I'd always err on the side of caution. If you have a big dog, let them outside to play. Then, let your toddler outside to play, and put your dog in.

Whoever said we were talking about normal well balanced dogs? I watched my Jack Russel Terrier stalk and bite my 2 year old grandaughter in the neck because the child went over and looked into his food dish and then walked away. I could not believe that he was going to do it. He went on to prove that he was not well balanced a few more times. He was trained and watched carefully but he was unbalanced and continued his evil ways until I put him down. You and I will have to agree to disagree on this one.

I don't think you are correct, to be honest.

You made a very specific point about dogs being protective of their fenceline and that kids should never be in a fenced area or go near their own fence in their own yard. That's the point I differed on. If you've had that experience, that was a really strange dog.

I didn't say kids should be unsupervised with a romping large dog. I know they can be knocked over. Little kids and dogs should always be supervised, and kids not allowed to play active games unless and until they are old enough, stable enough, and the dog is gentle enough.

I'm glad you closely watch your kids and your dogs. Especially if they may or may not be part pit ;~D

I don't have kids, only large dogs at the moment, and they are required to behave just a little better than the kids who visit ;~D

I guess I should have been more specific...

Some herding dogs can squeeze a small child between them and the fence (I've seen it happen!) and I have also seen a large Lab run full force into the corner of a fence where a child was when he was running circles in the yard.

Also, my one dog is extrememly defensive of the chain-link fence on our property. I would never put my kid between her and that fence. If someone were to walk by, I don't think she would go around Manya to get to the fence so she could bark at the passserby. She knows to be careful around Manya, but she IS just a dog, and she thinks that is her job (to protect the fence). I was just guessing there were other people who had similar situations.

Thanks for letting me clarify my position :-)

Sinkspur, so you are saying Cairn Terriers never bite people? Are you really that naive? They are terriers. Terriers were bred to bite and kill animals. All Terriers. They tend to be hyper, and they tend to be far more reactive (apt to bite) than more mellow breeds. My Cairn breeder friend had more than one that killed stray cats dumb enough to wander onto their property.

Taken from http://www.thedogplace.com/library/articles156.htm
is the following:

"For an entire category of bites, there is no reporting at all. This is for so called provoked bites. Bites that occur at veterinarian offices, dog groomers, and boarding kennels in many counties are automatically declared to be provoked bites. Those that know dog bite statistics from the inside out are those that work with animals for a living. I recently polled a number of animal shelter workers and this is what they said about dog bites. Most of the bites have been by small unfriendly Terrier type dogs and Cocker Spaniels. Occasionally they have seen a larger dog on a bite case but the vast majority of the bites were from small to medium sized dogs."

>Why do pit bulls snap in such a radical and lethal way? Well, personally, I think it's because Nitro is volitile by nature. I do not buy the premise that the aggressive nature is so finely tuned that they can be called 'only' dog aggressive.... Aggression is not that finely tuned by breeding, only perhaps by training. A pit bull has in him an ancestry that fought to the death, I don't think hoodlums in back alleys that are breeding these dogs are as sophisticated as you give them credit for.<

Frankly, I think your entire post is absolutely spot on.

Sinkspur, so you are saying Cairn Terriers never bite people?

No. I never said that, but you are trying to change the subject.

Small dogs can and do bite, but very few actually kill children and adults.

For grins, I typed "Cairn Terrier attack" in google. Got stories on muzzles, and attacks on the Cairn, but nothing about a Cairn killing anybody.

I also typed in "Pit Bull attack" and got five stories on death and mauling on the first page.

It is disingenuous to imply that "bite" is the same thing as tearing out an animal or human's throat.

That was a good editorial. Should have been posted to that insurance thread the other day.

Even if we assume the CDC statistics - i.e, absolute #s - are pure, accurately account for truly vicious vs truly unreasonably provoked, and all bites are reported (not just big dogs) they are misleading as far as "viciousness probability".

There are 60,000 German Shepherds 1 year. 100 "attacks" were reported from different dogs.

There are 20,000 Cairn Terriers 1 year. 100 attacks were reported.

Who is more likely to be vicious based on these raw data? .2% of GS attacked; .5% of Cairns attacked. .2 is < .5. Who has the greater probability of being "vicious"?

(This is purely an example.)

You cannot tell how vicious a breed/type is by simplistic stats such as "how many out of all the bites in the country this year were GS bites". Wrong relation, wrong % analysis. But that's what CDC does all the time.

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4-Year-Old In Critically Injured In Attack By Family's Dog