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20 thoughts on “2020 Dog Bite Fatality: 72-Year Old Woman Killed by Her Daughter's Two Pit Bulls Near Mandeville, Louisiana

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  1. I can’t wait to hear where these dogs came from. Were they hers from the start? Dumped on her by a relative? Did she go to a shelter and the careless staff and practices allowed a woman her age to “adopt” (*gag*) two pits?

    As is usual for me, my sympathy is limited when it is the owner who gets killed. It really is like Saturn eating his own children.

  2. I thought i read somewhere they were the son-in-law’s dogs. It is unlikely she went out and obtained those dogs.

  3. A commenter on the WDSU Facebook news story said:
    Some of these comments are just blowing my mind. We understand that it’s how these dogs are RAISED. However, this is MY grandma. My beautiful laying here fighting for her life because dogs in her house turned on her. She was trying to put puppies back into their pool when this incident occurred. I myself own 3 pit bulls & have never to worry about an issue like this but this dogs attitude changed after she had puppies.

  4. The people weren’t stupid. The people knew that the dogs could instantly become a grave threat. The people chose to place themselves and all others at risk of the grave threat. For people who are not in the spirit of love, the lure of the excitement of owning a dangerous animal is too great to resist.

  5. I had seen a report that said the pits belonged to a grandson. The ownership does not really matter now. The elderly woman is dead and so are both of the dogs. The dog owner, whoever it is, should be charged….especially if the dogs had attacked this poor woman before….Why, why, why won’t people believe how dangerous these pit bulls are????

  6. So Charlotte Guidry and Janell Callender are sisters, and Barbara Cook was mother to both of them?

    Do we know who the 10-yo grandson is? ie if he is or is not Callender’s son

    Known threat. Prior attacks to the now-deceased victim. I hate that this is now so commonplace as to be “uh huh, AGAIN, totally not surprising.”

    What will it take for dangerous dog owners, and the pit bull crowd in particular, to take safety seriously? Do they need to start serving 10- to 20-year hitches in prison if their known biter kills someone?

  7. I have GSDs. Although my females are grabby when it comes to me handling their newborn puppies, I’ve never had a single one try to bite me. They try to grab their puppies out of my hands. That’s what normal bitches do.

    I’m very sorry for how this woman died. No one deserved that. However, what part of animal shelters overflowing with pit bulls don’t these folks understand?

    If they want to breed dogs, why don’t they
    choose a safe breed for which there is demand?

    Now we have a litter of puppies born to killer dogs. Are they weaned? Undoubtedly people will come forward to adopt those puppies. After all, it’s not the puppies’ fault their parents weren’t raised right. Seriously,?

    In my opinion, I hate to say this but the puppies should be destroyed. They have inherited killer genes. That’s not their fault, but should people take the chance that these puppies will be killers? I think not.

    Hormones do affect temperament, but they don’t turn good dogs into killers.

    • Probably THE best indicator of a dog’s temperament, and therefore its propensity for deadly violence, is the temperament of the parents.Although breed is a very useful guide, bloodline will tell you much more specifically than breed what kind of dog you are dealing with.

      No one relishes the thought of euthanizing puppies, but there’s an excellent chance that one or more pup in that litter will have inherited the high aggression of the parents. In a dog physically capable of killing humans, that’s unacceptable and extremely unsafe.

    • Trashy people love breeding pit bulls. It’s almost a prerequisite for a certain type of lifestyle. They don’t care that most if these dogs turn up dead or in shelters. It’s all about quick bucks and projecting a sort of ‘outsider’ image.

      A while back I overheard two twenty-something girls talking about dogs, and one said she bred ‘blue nosed’ pits because they are “rare” and she “doesn’t want to see them go extinct.” Idiocy. Blue nosed pits absolutely fill shelters in my town and everywhere. Every other color nose and fur, too.

  8. Since I am a close friend to Barbara I can answer a few question some have. Barbara is mother to Charolette and Janell. It is her house but Janell and family live with her The dogs belong to Janell and her husband. The grandson is her youngest daughters child Jlynn whom she was babysitting for that day.

    • Thank you for clarifying the family relationships. What a horrifying situation for Barbara to be in. She was a loving and brave grandma to protect her grandchild. God rest her soul.

    • I am so sorry for the tragic loss of your friend Barbara. Too many friends, mothers and grandmas like Barbara have been lost this year alone, leaving many asking, “Why?”

      The answer is that certain dog breeds simply do not belong in homes. They are not safe for families. They kill indescriminately and without warning. If Barbara had not moved to protect Jlynn, that child would now be dead. But it grieves me to think of a child witnessing this horrific attack which took a grandma’s life. Such a lifelong trauma should not be so but will continue to happen as long as people promote pit bulls as “family dogs.”

      So many aging parents open their homes and lives up so generously to their adult children and these adult children then bring deadly dogs into those homes. The number of parents killed by their adult children’s dogs brought into the parent’s home is really staggering. Generosity and love toward one’s grown child should never be something that puts a life in danger. You will hear many people make excuse about why these dogs killed your friend… protecting puppies, startled by the child, triggered by this or that circumstance, etc. But the reality is that if this had been a couple of beagles, corgis or any of hundreds of other breeds of dog, your friend would still be alive. She might have gotten nipped or had a few stitches. What happened instead was a sustained mauling which not only killed Barbara but put other lives at risk as well because these dogs have been bred for generations to attack with little provocation and continue attacking until their victim is dead. It is part of their genetic makeup in the same way that the aforementioned beagles track and corgis herd. No amount of love or training can remove that built in propensity. Breed choice MATTERS and adult children who bring dangerous breeds into their elderly parent’s home are putting their parents as well as anyone else who enters that home at risk.

      I hope that Barbara’s death was not in vain and that others will see the reality of what pit bulls can do. If you can find the courage to do so, consider being a voice for your friend and warn others of the dangers of these dogs.

  9. Owners need to go to prison just like careless gun owners.
    These dogs are bombs waiting to go off.
    Owners know that! They just want to show off. “hey look at my dog! It would never hurt anyone”
    Deep down they KNOW that dog has the potential to render a horribly painful death.

  10. With the number of elderly parents being killed by their grown children’s dogs, how about passing a law that the owners of these dogs cannot benefit from the settling of that parent’s estate? That might provide some incentive to not bring dangerous dogs into that home.

  11. This is very saddening, espically for me hearing of another Louisiana attack. The daughter who owned the dogs should be ashamed of herself. Her mutant dogs attacked her mother multiple times and she did NOTHING. Oh, except for BREEDING them! They should have been put down after the first attack. Not bred to make MORE killer dogs. And the fact that Barbara died protecting her grandson hurts especially; she protected her family while the daughter allowed her mother to die. I hope she is jailed and all the pit puppies her maulers produced are euthanized.

  12. I. Can’t. Even.

    What grandma is NOT going to look after her grandchild? What grandma should be at risk of being murdered by a dog, while protecting her grandchild from said dog?

    There are horrific injustices perpetrated every day by the justice systems in North America. That’s just simple fact.

    Somehow, this is getting lock-stepped with justice for canines, which is an entirely different matter. Dogs don’t require justice.

    People, do.

    There is no justice for this grandma, or her grandchild because some selfish twits decided they just HAD to have some pitbulls to breed.

    I’m voting on the side of euthanize that entire line of dogs. Taking any of them home is playing Russian Roulette with the lives of people who come in contact with them.

  13. People who keep aggressive unstable dogs are themselves aggressive and unstable. Because if they weren’t, they would care about their fellow human beings. Obviously, the owner of these killer dogs didn’t even care about her own mother.

  14. If drug addicts hear that a certain dealer’s drugs caused the death of one or more addicts, they will flock to that dealer who has extra good drugs.

    Likewise, I suspect many people would run to buy the offspring of killer dogs. Why? Maybe to try to prove the killers just weren’t raised right. Maybe for bragging rights to owners who have offspring of killers. Other reasons?

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