Home where a sleeping infant was killed by a family dog in Hall County, Georgia.
Dog Believed to be Attacker
UPDATE 07/13/19: We have located photographs of the 2-year old husky that bit a 22-day old baby on the head an undetermined number of times, killing the infant. A pair of littermate puppies (twin in appearance) arrived at the family's home in January 2017. We already know that the pure white husky was not confiscated by police nor was one of the black-and-white littermates. So, the attacker is presumably the other littermate. The huskies belong to a woman living at the home.
Notably, the woman refers to the black-and-white huskies as "My Wolves." We presume this is a referral to the Game of Thrones TV series, which heavily featured "Direwolves" and caused an explosion of huskies being bred and sold. Much has been written about this explosion, as recently as May 2019. Abandoned huskies are now showing up en mass at shelters across the US and UK. As early as 2017, the star of Game of Thrones urged the public to stop buying huskies.
We have also removed the term "mix" from the breed. The "mix" term is frequently appended by shelter employees to all dogs entering the facility even when the dog appears to be purebred.
07/10/19: Police Identify Infant
Sheriff's deputies in Hall County have released the identity of an infant fatally mauled by a family husky Tuesday in Gainesville. The attack occurred at about 2:00 pm at home in the 2900 block of Gillsville Highway. Ruth Flores, just 22-days old, was severely bitten in the head by one of her family's huskies. She was immediately taken to Northeast Georgia Medical Center, where she later died. The infant was sleeping in a bedroom when the 2-year old husky attacked her.
Earlier today, CBS 46 posted footage of a reporter trying to speak to a person inside the infant's home. One can see three additional dogs in the front window of the home -- two huskies and a white dog with wavy hair. Deputies said when they arrived at the scene, they found the baby with serious trauma to her head. The dog bit the baby an "undetermined number of times," deputies said. The attacking dog continues to be held in quarantine at Hall County Animal Services.
07/09/19: Infant Killed by Family Dog
Gainesville, GA - An infant has died after being attacked and seriously injured by a dog, Hall County Fire Services confirmed. Firefighters responded to a home in the 2900 block of Gillsville Highway after a report of a dog bite to a 22-day old infant girl. "The incident occurred inside the home, in a bedroom where the infant was resting, according to initial information gathered by deputies on the scene," Hall County Sheriff’s Office 1st Lt. Chris Dale stated in a news release.
The baby girl was transported to Northeast Georgia Medical Center, Hall County Fire Services Capt. Zach Brackett said. The infant died of her injuries at the hospital. Hall County Animal Control and Enforcement took custody of the animal, which belonged to the residents of the home, the Gainesville Times reports. Officials said the family dog involved is a husky-mix. The name of the baby girl has not been released. The City of Gainesville is about 40 miles northwest of Athens.
CBS 46 News reports the deadly attack occurred about 2:00 pm. The infant's mother was home when the family's 2-year old husky-mix bit the child on the head. CBS 46 also spoke to Hall County Sheriff’s Office 1st Lt. Chris Dale, who said there were "other dogs in crates" at the family's home on Gillsville Highway. No other children were in the home at the time of the attack, Dale said. Further comments by officials are currently being withheld due to HIPAA restrictions.
Breed-Specific Traits
In our multi-year report of dog bite fatalities -- U.S. Dog Bite Fatalities: Breeds of Dogs Involved, Age Groups and Other Factors Over a 13-Year Period (2005 to 2017) -- we pointed out a breed-specific trait pertaining to huskies. "Of the 13 fatal attacks inflicted by huskies, 62% (8 of 13) were infants ≤11 months old and 92% (12) were ages ≤5 years old. The single adult death, a 22-year old female victim, was a multi-breed attack involving a female husky and a male pit bull."
Our statement was also footnoted with the following: "In comparison with the other top-six killing dog breeds, only 15% (3 of 20) of German shepherd victims were infants ≤11 months old, 13% (6 of 45) of rottweiler victims, 10% (28 of 284) of pit bull victims, 7% (1 of 15) of American bulldog victims, 0% of mixed-breed victims, and 0% of mastiff/bullmastiff victims were infants." Very often in the cases of husky-inflicted infant deaths, the baby is sleeping when the dog attacks too.
Related articles:
11/16/18: 2018 Dog Bite Fatality: Family Pit Bull Fatally Attacks Newborn in Crib in Florida
04/11/18: 2018 Dog Bite Fatality: Pet Wolf-Dog Hybrid Kills 8-Day Old Baby Girl in Virginia
Law enforcement departments across the United States should release consistent "baseline" information to the media and the public after each fatal dog mauling, including these items.
Husky MIX- with what? I’ve recall several cases of Husky’s and malamutes harming babies. These breeds shouldn’t be around small children. And dogs in crates? Sounds like your typical pittie rescue.
Huskies are so much closer to wolves than other breeds including when they open their eyes and imprint. Still, when I read that other dogs were in crates, I start to wonder if this dog is a pitsky.
I hope nothing bad happens with a former co-worker who is pregnant and an expected baby seeing as how her and her husband have a Pit Bull and a Husky! They are not worried but I am!
Very late reading this case, but I hope that coworker’s kids are safe! That is a disaster waiting to happen. I just pray the beasts are the same gender or fixed so they can’t make pitskys, worse thing EVER.
There is a young couple in our neighborhood that own 3 huskies. The other day, my daughter was riding her bike while I jogged behind her, and one of them went completely berserk, trying to charge at us. The girl shrugged her shoulders and said “oh, for some reason, he hates bicycles, we think something happened with a bicycle in his last home….”
Yeah, sounds like a dog that needs to be out on the streets of a neighborhood full of small children.
When I got home, my husband and I had this very conversation, about how we don’t trust the things and we hope they don’t bring a baby into that house!
Another deluded dog lover who makes excuses. Just what your neighborhood needs.
That’s just the thing… these people cry out “it’s all in how you raise them” but then get a dog and don’t even know its history! I am just using one of their taking points, I know it’s not how you raise them. And in this case it’s not a pit bull, but still.
Which is it? Is it “all in how you raise them,” or is it “save them all”? Because it can’t be both. (In the same way, people will call pit bulls “nanny dogs” and then when a baby is killed blame the parents and say, “everyone knows you should never leave a baby alone with a dog.” So which is it?)
I had a Husky as a young adult. He was smart, eerily beautiful, and generally obedient. He was a great dog… until he wasn’t. This young dog which had been raised with animals of all sorts decided one day to attack a hutch full of our baby rabbits in a most gruesome way, pulling their feet through the wire flooring and eating their legs off. We didn’t train him to do that. He didn’t have a “bad experience” with rabbits in his past. He just did it because it was in his breed nature to kill creatures smaller than him. That’s what Huskies do. Including human infants. There is no way I would trust a Husky around a baby. It might be fine the first time, the second, the twentieth. It might be fine… until it’s not.
Just 3 weeks old. What an unfathomable shame. Looking over these infant deaths and seeing 8 days, 2 days, 22 days… It’s just utterly tragic that these human children with so much potential are snuffed out by dogs that are allowed to have access to them. It is never worth the risk.
I’m curious about why there were dogs in crates OUTSIDE the home, and yet a husky mix is allowed INSIDE with the baby. Was there some sort of crate-and-rotate situation here?
Why was the dog in the bedroom with the resting infant? Where was the infant?Floor?Bed?Crib? I feel like I need more information. So sad for the infant and the dog. 😭
it is well known huskys dont do good with small children. i would never have one around a baby. too dangerous of a situation
I’m just going to leave this here….
Missing Texas man was eaten by his own ‘aggressive’ dogs, police say
https://www.foxnews.com/us/missing-texas-man-was-eaten-by-his-own-dogs-police-say
Texas . Aggressive dogs. Having 18 of them. All signs point to pit bulls and their mixes .
Children and babies always come first no matter what! It’s never a good idea to leave any dog or cat with a baby or toddler. The owner should consider either leaving pets outside or giving them another home if a concern the pet will attack. IF it has teeth and claws it can scratch and bite. We did have Golden Retrievers when our daughter was born and they stayed outside. We NEVER left the baby and dogs alone by themselves. Aggressive breeds such as Pit bulls, Huskies, Malamutes, etc are known to attack suddenly. I feel for the family but the dog needs to be put down now even if it wasn’t responsible as it may attack again!
I’m saddened to hear about fatal dog attacks. This is a tragic story so sad
How absolutely heartbreaking. I can only hope that that poor sweet baby felt no pain.
Babies are such beautiful blessings, and to lose one in such a terrible, violent way is just unfathomable.
This breaks my heart. My son and I brought home a husky/heeler/gsd mix puppy, and she is wonderful of course!! We raised her right and all that, but she is a prey driven dog and we know and have seen that. She is absolutely precious and smart and beautiful, but when he moved out of state with her we had at length conversations of what her behaviors are.
He has a nephew of five and I told him never ever to leave her with him and their little dog, and to always be wary. I didn’t know her breed when we found her and wouldn’t do it again but my son and her are in love and she is an emotional support animal for him.
I wouldn’t ever have left my English setter with any kid either. She would bark weird if she didn’t like a kid, and while she was a wonderful girl who my heart still breaks over, she was not a kid dog.
Never trust any dog with a baby….So heartbreaking. Ghost did catch a couple baby bunnies running through the apartment complex, and I remember being shocked at how fast she gulped them down. Granted they were teeny tiny, but I felt so bad, and heard them squeaking. That kicked up my vigilance a notch…..
We need new laws.
Call this animal neglect and abuse.
Remove all dogs from the property.
Charge all the owners/ handlers and when found guilty, ban them all from any dog ownership or contact for Life.
The FBI tracks convicted animal abusers as studies have shown that those who neglect and abuse animals are disproportionately dangerous to humans as well.
The FBI can become the national registry for these animal abusers.
Signs must be posted “No dogs permitted”. Any dogs later found on the property or in their possession shall be immediately confiscated.
I don’t trust dog people to be honest about which dog did the attacking, as the insanity of dog people is increasingly similar those belonging to many other cults.
Publicized and enforced this breed neutral affordable law will begin to make a difference. Publicized and enforced it would end recidivism.
Punishments with fines and prison time can be used as well but these cruel, ignorant, selfish humans should never be able to touch a dog again.
Calling this dog a mix gives other husky owners who hear or read this story a false sense of safety. “Oh, but my dog is a full breed husky, so it is safer than the dog which killed that baby, because that dog was a husky mix.”
It’s time that news sources and “experts” start getting honest about the breed of dogs involved in these fatalities and stop calling everything a “mix.” Depending on biased animal control people to label these dogs need to stop. There are endless resources for the investigating officers to utilize in determining dog breeds, and photographing the animal when it is taken for quarantine and getting a clear photo from the owner should be mandatory.
Imagine that there have been several infant deaths from some other cause… let’s say that a certain brand of cribs are collapsing and crushing sleeping babies to death. No news agency would be satisfied until they knew the brand name of the flawed cribs, so they could warn parents. Photos of the cribs would be publicized. The precise name of the brand and model would be printed clearly. I think law enforcement and news agencies are afraid of seeming biased against a breed of dog. As if a breed of dog was a race! It’s not. It’s a manufactured type created by people. And the public needs to know which “brands” of dog are deadly. Animal control is full of biased people who are really lobbyists. But legal agencies should be forthright and honest about breeds involved in fatalities in the cause of public safety, and news outlets should be reporting facts.
To extend my analogy regarding the faulty brand of crib, I really doubt that a news story released about crib deaths from that brand would have commenters showing photos of their infants sleeping in those cribs, or people defending the crib brand by saying “I have never had a problem with my (insert brand name) crib! The owners must have assembled it wrong! Everybody knows you never leave a baby alone in a crib! I’m sorry about those babies, but just because several cribs of that brand name and model collapsed and crushed babies, it doesn’t mean that you should make all cribs of that make and model look bad! It’s racist! After all, people kill more babies than cribs do, so maybe we should just get rid of all people! And everyone knows that http://www.cribscollapse.org is biased and based on fake information!”
Thank you Colleen for tracking down photographs of these dogs. I wish everyone that hears about this could see them because the proof is undeniable.
Amen to that. I have an Alaskan Husky.
A husky is a husky is a husky. A pitbull is a pitbull is a pitbull.
Many huskies, generally referred to as Alaskan, are called that because they are mixed to make them lighter, faster, smarter than Siberians for sledding purposes. A few generations back there may be a hint of wolf for stamina purposes.
Informed Northern style dog owners know that huskies need to be carefully watched around children. Why? Because they play rough. Just watch a group of husky puppies. Babies and children aren’t big enough to command the dogs, therefore, the dogs take them as either prey…or weird puppies. Prey speaks for itself but children are often bitten in the face and neck because *that’s what huskies do to other huskies that are squeaking or making high pitched noises.*
Kids don’t have heavy ruffs of fur to protect them from a young Northern dog that may not have proper bit inhibition.
This again goes back to the idiocy of Dogs over people. Dogs bite–it’s a thing. Huskies like to chomp on squeaky things. Again, a thing.
Northern dog owners need to be aware of this trait. It doesn’t take long to teach a dog that it is not allowed to touch a baby. Because sooner or later, that child will, by accident or circumstance be alone with that animal. Real life gets in the way.
So train your dogs, people. Do your best to not leave children alone with them…and train them so if it does happen–you don’t wind up regretting it.
I fail to understand people who get dogs but don’t think they require constant educating to live in a world full of people. If an hour a day dedicated to dog training and management is too much to handle, they shouldn’t own a dog in the first place.
This is just heartbreaking. Twenty-two days old, Jesus. My neighbors (who are our close friends) had a baby last month–I stayed at their house with their toddler while they were in the hospital–and I cannot imagine seeing that beautiful infant dead, especially in such a horrendous fashion. That poor, poor baby.
And those huskies are beautiful, too. My husband and I both love huskies; I have never seen one that wasn’t stunning, and they have so much personality. My husband has always wanted one, but we’re both aware that they should not be around small children (which ruled them out until recently, as our daughters are now teens), and that their exercise requirements are just more than we’re willing to take on. I walk our GSD twice a day for at least thirty minutes each time, and we often play fetch, tug, or keep-away in our large fenced backyard for a while, too; we wanted a dog with energy enough for that amount of exercise, but it wouldn’t be near enough for a husky.
Just a tragedy all around. I do so wish people would stop picking dogs based solely on looks or fashion, and really think about how it might fit in with their lives. This could have been prevented. And to be honest, I blame this on the pit nutters too, to some degree; their rhetoric is to blame for people thinking breed characteristics are only skin deep, that all dogs are the same (“It’s all how you raise them!”), and that any hint of negative attributes in any breed is just fear-driven propaganda.
In watching the news clip when the remaining dogs are seen through the window, I couldn’t help but think… if my 3 week old child had just been killed by a dog, would I want to keep the other dogs? Especially one that looked just like and is the sibling to the killer? I don’t think I could stomach looking at a dog that looks exactly like the one that took my baby’s life. Actually, so close the time of the event, I’m not sure if I’d want to be around ANY dog even if it had nothing to do with my child’s death. But to keep the one that looks exactly like the killer would be unfathomable.
The other thing that tweaked me, related to that, Sellis is that these dogs are from the same dog family.
Temperament counts. Real dog trainers know this. Educated dog owners and all breeders, know this.
I, for the life of me, don’t know why they’d ever want a dog from that bloodline, around their children, ever again.
Yes, a skilled person can train a dog to do and not do, a lot of things. What nobody can do, is guarantee a dog won’t give in to their natural instincts when the owner is not around to watch. And sooner or later, a dog WILL be around a kid, unsupervised for a brief period (Oops, pot is burning, gotta grab something, etc) because life, happens.
It breaks my heart when a sleeping baby is killed by dogs, I hate the dog apologists who come out with ‘oh the dog thought it was prey because the baby was crying and wriggling around etc.’ total BS newborns are ASLEEP nearly 24/7 at 22 days old! same with the death of the Brazillion twin girls, at 26 days old, they are ASLEEP ffs