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.

That might be a yes and no kind of thing, the American Staffordshire Terriers are bred as family companions. Dogs that have been bred as companion dogs for several generations are not as aggressive. Most of the dogs I have met that were bred as Staffordshire Terriers were not vicious dogs but really quite sweet. They are pretty active strong dogs and do need a strict owner. You can still purchase pit bulls which are just bred to fight and be mean that are not really Staffordshire Terriers. A Staffordshire from one of the AKC pet dog bloodlines would get eaten alive by a real backstreet fighting pit bull. Sure Staffordshire Terriers are bred from the same original stock but are changing in temperament. It is developing like the English Bulldog, which while retaining the form has lost the function. I may be wrong but that has been my observation from reading about and meeting registered Staffordshire Terriers. I have also run across some very nasty dogs that the owners have proudly just called pit bulls.p>

"While the pit bull is thoroughly English and Irish in its origin, it was in America that the dog first was officially "registered". The pit bull soon had two single-breed registries, the UKC and the forerunner of the ADBA. These registries exist to this day, and, for the most part, continue to register pure pit bulldogs. [The UKC allows American Staffordshires to be registered as "pit bulls" which, in recent years, has had a tremendous impact of the breed as registered by the UKC. For the most part, UKC and AKC registered dogs cannot be differentiated, as they carry primarily the same blood. UKC dogs are now bred almost exclusively for show and pet purposes with little thought given to form, function or working soundness."

http://www.bbwg.com/CM/Newsletters/december-bbwgboardreport.pdf

One dog may be dual registered as an AmStaff with AKC and a Pit Bull with UKC, same dog. UKC is a respectable club which is older than the AKC. Amstaffs were started from Colby bred Pit Bulls. Both clubs breed for temperment as well as conformation.

In all dogs shows, AKC or UKC, one is disqualified for a dog that fights or bites. So temperment is critical. In some obedience exercises the dogs line up within inches of each other and must hold a sit or stay for three to five minutes unattended.

Character shows in the obedience ring as well as in other performance events.

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