Leo Caddel, 3-months old, was killed by a pet wolf-dog hybrid in Chelsea, Alabama.
Dog Kills Newborn
Chelsea, AL - An infant is dead after being attacked by a pet wolf-dog hybrid, states a press release from the Shelby County Sheriff's Office. On Thursday, at about 12:54 pm, Shelby County deputies, animal control officers, and Chelsea firefighters responded to a home in the 1000 block of County Road 440 about an animal attack involving an infant. The newborn was transported to Grandview Medical Center by ambulance, where it was pronounced dead upon arrival due to its injuries.
The canine, described as a wolf-dog hybrid, was being kept as a pet by the family of the infant. A veterinarian euthanized the dog at the scene. Chelsea Mayor Tony Picklesimer issued a statement confirming the exotic breed. "It’s been confirmed that one of our children here in Chelsea was killed by an exotic family pet and succumbed to their injuries yesterday afternoon after being taken to the hospital by Chelsea Fire & Rescue. We are deeply saddened by this unfortunate and tragic event."
Infant Death Investigation"On Thursday, November 30, 2023, at approximately 12:54 pm Shelby County 911 received an emergency call reporting an animal attack involving an infant at a residence in the area of County Road 440 in Chelsea. Shelby County deputies, Chelsea firefighters, and Shelby County Animal Control Officers responded to the scene. The infant was transported to an area hospital by ambulance, with a law enforcement escort.
Upon arrival at the hospital, the infant was pronounced dead due to injuries suspected to have been caused by the animal. The animal is described as a wolf-hybrid and was reportedly kept as a pet by the family of the infant. The animal was euthanized at the scene by an area Vet, at the request of law enforcement, and has been transported to the Alabama State Diagnostics Laboratory in Auburn for further examination and investigation. There is no threat to the public. The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office is currently investigating the circumstances that led to the death of the infant." - Shelby County Sheriff's Office
Common Sense?
A commenter on Picklesimer's post asked, "Who keeps a pet wolf hybrid around a newborn?" Someone who is uninformed about wolf-dogs, or someone who practices willful disbelief about their "obvious" genetic reality. On the Chilton/Shelby Public Safety P25 feed at Broadcastify.com, a dispatcher states: "A 3-month old was being carried around in a dog's mouth. Its nose is bleeding. Patient is breathing. Dog is a shepherd-mix. Unknown location of the dog. Law enforcement is also notified."
Similar behavior occurs when a pet husky kills a newborn. Often the infant is sleeping at the time, on a bed or in a crib, and the husky picks the infant up by its head. Last year, after a pet husky killed a 4-day old infant in Cave Springs, Arkansas, the attack language stated, the dog “put its mouth on the baby’s head” and “the husky's tooth penetrated the baby's head.” In 2019, deputies in Hall County, Georgia said the pet husky bit the newborn on the head an "undetermined number of times."
A follow-up report in the Cave Springs death said that police investigators characterized the baby’s bite injuries as “severe injuries to her head.”
In 2018, an 8-day old baby was lying in a bassinet when the family's pet wolf-dog hybrid killed her. She suffered "very serious injuries to the upper body and the head," Sheriff Gary Parsons said. At the time of the attack, the family was fostering two young children that had been approved by the Wise County Department of Social Services to live in the wolf-dog household. The infant's family had acquired the dog a little over 3-years earlier from a Florida-based wolf-dog hybrid breeder, AE Kennel.
Our nonprofit maintains archives for three dog breeds: Fatal Pit Bull Attacks (1833 to present), Fatal Rottweiler Attacks (1978 to present), and Fatal Wolf-Dog Hybrid Attacks (1980 to present). Animal behaviorist and author Alexandra Semyonova wrote the introduction for our wolf-dog hybrid archive and provided a special report. At the time of publication, April 2018, Game of Thrones (2011-2019), which popularized "dire wolves," the surge in the populations of hybrids and huskies had peaked.
Investigation Underway
According to the Shelby County Reporter, the owners of the wolf-dog hybrid knew about the dog's lineage, but no breeder or kennel has been identified so far. At the time of the deadly attack, there were other children in the home, but none of them were harmed. The Alabama Department of Human Resources and the Shelby County Sheriff's Office continue to investigate circumstances behind the infant's death, and if previous instances of child endangerment occurred in the family's home.
Picklesimer states the dog is part wolf and part shepherd. The most common breeds to create hybrids are Alaskan malamutes, huskies and German shepherds. A report by WTVM states the dog will be tested at an Alabama lab to determine if it is part wolf. However, it's the UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory in California that generally carries out the wolf-dog hybrid test. The test can detect wolf-dog hybrids within three generations, but it cannot provide the percentage of wolf ancestry.
The UC Davis test also has critics, which is why identifying the breeder is important. A quick search of Alabama wolf-dog hybrid breeders shows one that advertises "Mid/High Content" puppies that are Embark DNA tested. Embark states its DNA test can detect 350+ breeds and wolves, thus the test can allegedly determine the amount of wolf content in a hybrid. The example of "Luna" shows a high content of gray wolf, followed by Alaskan malamute, German shepherd, husky and samoyed.
Wolf-Dog Hybrid "Kuna"
Based upon the address of the attack location, which is the same address as Dickey Chicks Hatchery on Highway 440, we can confirm this household has a female wolf-dog hybrid, named "Kuna." In our 13-year data set (2005 to 2017), sex of dog was known in 291 of 433 deaths. 5% (15) were inflicted by 1 female. Of the 25 wolf-dog hybrid fatalities (1980 to 2023), sex was known in 17 cases. 35% (6) were inflicted by 1 female, 7 times higher than all other breeds combined in the 13-year data set.
Fourth Alabama Death
The infant's death marks the fourth fatal dog mauling in Alabama this year; three occurred in the Birmingham area. In March, a dog pack killed a 74-year old man in McDonald Chapel, just west of Birmingham. In November, one or more dogs killed a 63-year old woman in Birmingham's Ensley neighborhood. In late July, a 27-year old man was killed by a dog pack in Skipperville, south of Montgomery. The infant's death is a departure from pack attacks that typically afflict this state.
A female wolf-dog hybrid, "Kuna," lives at the property where the attack occurred.
A pet wolf-dog hybrid killed a newborn in Chelsea, Alabama on November 30, 2023.
Related articles:
04/23/18: Fatal Wolf-Dog Hybrid Attacks - The Archival Record - DogsBite.org
03/09/18: 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.
Only an idiot would breed wolves with dogs. However, there is the occasional breeder who crosses dogs with wolves in order to create a new breed of dog.
Years ago the crossing of a wolf with a dog created a wolf hybrid.
However, recent research has verified that the wolf is in the same family as a pet dog. A wolf hybrid should be called a wolf dog. If I bred a Golden retriever to a standard poodle, I’d have a goldendoodle, not a hybrid. Similarly if I bred a wolf to a Golden retriever, I’d have a wolfdog.
In the veterinary community, the distinction is important. Since wolves were believed to be a different species and rabies vaccine was not tested on wolves, even if a “wolf hybrid” had been vaccinated for rabies, it was considered unvaccinated. Likewise, if a “wolf hybrid” bit a human, the DNR (Department of National Resources)
took the dog and killed it. “Wolf hybrids” were wild animals according to the law. “Wolf hybrids” weren’t quarantined. They were destroyed immediately.
Now that “wolf hybrids” are wolfdogs, this should no longer apply.
Breeding wolves to dogs, in my opinion, is stupid. However, with the name change, breeding them will likely change resulting in more of them.
If one breeds a wolfdog that is 66% wolf to another 66% wolfdog, one cannot know whether the puppies will act like wolves or dogs.
In addition, the three breeds approved to breed to wolves were Husky, Malamute, and GSD. Many BYB sell purebred Huskies as wolfdogs to the public.
Many wolfdog owners want to brag about owning wolves. Truthfully, I suspect the poor baby would have been killed by a Husky too.
I hope the American public gets the message that wolf crosses aren’t good pets.
Some wolfdogs are registered. If so, one could see the percentage of wolf as well as the other breeds in the wolfdog.
I guess the rule that no one should leave any baby alone with any dog should be remembered. This baby should not have been killed by a wolfdog.
I respectfully disagree on the use of the word “hybrid”, I believe it is appropriate in this case. Wolves and dogs are different species, by the functional and ecological species concepts.
No dog should be allowed near a baby, as they are able to strike too quickly for anyone to intervene, among other reasons. Unfortunately, idiots on social media are uploading videos and pictures of dogs and helpless babies together, modeling and normalizing reckless behavior.
they are the same species
scary that anyone would believe they are two diferent species , they are dog like canids with the same number of chromosomes
It’s not scary at all. Life wasn’t created for the convenience of the biologists who would like to neatly classify it – it’s endlessly varied and complicated. It’s not even that easy for biologists to agree on how to define a species; that’s why there are different definitions/concepts for what a species is. Your viewpoint might be the biological species concept. Lions and tigers have the same number of chromosomes; in my opinion they’re different species. Check out the ecological species concept and the functional species concept, for instance. Even by the biological species concept they might not be the same species, as there is separation between the groups by mating (usually the male wolf kills the captive female dog).
The topic is a source of good debate. Scientific opinion must have agreed with mine at one point because species get names.
Wolf: Canis lupus
Dog: Canis familiaris
I’ve also seen dogs called Canis lupus familiaris – signs that debate may be shifting towards “subspecies”, whatever that is supposed to be. The general principle is that life is what it is and naming is humans trying to classify it. I think it’s important to separate dogs and wolves because if we get dog DNA mixed into wild wolves then it’s going to weaken them as a species, and if we get wolf DNA mixed in with dogs then we know the sort of bad outcomes we’ll get.
It’s been so long ago that the domestic dog were breeding with wolves. Wild wolves kill dogs even if they’re in heat. Having owned a wolf dog mix whatever you call it, I called it dam hard to be a good owner and keep him & the neighbors all happy, plus the little baby calves, goats, sheep and other farm animals that he would have loved to make his dinner, alive. He killed every one of my moms chickens who went close enough for him to gut and eat. He’d bury the entrails. He didn’t touch the cats though and he’d let any kittens we had crawl over him and wash them like he was their mother after trying to kill the neighbors new little goat! He wasn’t ever let loose or anything like that but he did escape his kennel more than once. After we moved back down to Montana we lived in a town of between 600 -800 people and we couldn’t take him behind the pickup to run. He was big enough that I couldn’t make him move when he didn’t want to. One day he escaped, got into a neighbors pickup before they could & refused to come back out! Finally the local police came by (we were in front of the post office) & the cop pulled him out of the pickup for me. He did kill one little dog, the owners refused to keep it in their own yard & encouraged it to use our yard for the bathroom which was really irresponsible of them because that little mutt would stay just a few feet away from him & bark at him poo in his area ect until one day he jumped out of our large living room window & killed the little dog instantly. We definitely didn’t let him around the little kids in our family especially not an infant! None of the dogs were ever even allowed inside when they were around! We ended up with him because some stupid guy had a male wolf Malamute mix and people didn’t get their dogs fixed like we do now. I believe that wolf hybrids were illegal in Alaska even back then to keep the public safe & the wolves from being ruined by mixing with dogs. Because the fact is that no matter what you call it the dog is definitely unequivocally not a wolf! If you go pet most dogs you won’t lose an arm. Read the book The 100 sillest things people say about dogs by Alexander Semyonova. She does a good job explaining the fact that wolves aren’t dogs or dogs wolves. Just a little FYI there are certainly genetic differences between wolves & dogs & species vs sub species has to do with the ability of offspring to be fertile or not. It’s been a while since I had beginning biology so I don’t recall every detail of taxonomy but I promise you that wolves & dogs have distinct genetic differences despite their having 98.8% of the same DNA. When you realize that we share 98.8% of the same DNA as the chimpanzees, you wouldn’t be confused about the fact that we’re not chimpanzees! Breading wolves with dogs is illegal in quite a few states & it’s definitely unethical! We ended up keeping the one puppy, the vet thought he didn’t have any wolf, he was wrong. All the other puppies were euthanized in the first days of their lives because they were not safe for pets. My parents & even the vet who had to euthanize those puppies knew that! We’d run our huskies & our Malamute behind the pickup in the summer and I’d have to sit in the back to make sure everyone was following & not going close to the sides or front of the vehicle so they’d be safe. Unlike the huskies or the Alaskan Malamute we owned he was the ONLY one that routinely jumped into the back of the pickup with me before they were done exercising so I have serious doubts about this increasing their stamina or more precisely the desire to run & pull the sled! Natives in Alaska, Canada and on the other artic nations never mixed their huskies, Malamute, samoyed Eskimo dogs nor any sled dog breeds were mixed with the wolves by the indigenous people. White people do this & it’s not for the dog! It’s so some stupid guy who has inadequacy issues can brag about his wolf hybrid! Everyone else gets left with the dirty job of euthanizing those puppies or dealing with the few lucky enough to get a home they could be contained in. I’d bet they’d choose to be a free wolf or a nice dog but not a dangerous mix, if they could talk!
Poor baby she or he didn’t live a full life because of his or her parent choice of family dog.educate me how on earth do someone breed a dog with a wolf.where would he get the wolf it not like he goes in the wood and he howl and bunch of wolves come running to him and he grab them in put them in his car.
When an animal, dog or cat moves it’s infants they often actually pick them up by the head and not the scruff of the neck! I think at least some of these infants being killed by the huskies and in this case were being cared for by the animal instead of attacked. It has the same tragic outcome of course but if the parents were to realize that these dogs instinct are to pick up the child by the head when they feel that the child needs moved to a better location for it’s safety, maybe just maybe we could stop seeing these deaths! We had Alaskan Malamutes and one big male loved the baby kittens and would let them crawl all over him but we had to watch him because he wanted to pick them up by their little heads and move them! He was successful once & no kittens dies but after he did that he was never left alone with the kittens for fear of kitten injuries! The parents need to be vigilant and keep large dogs of any breed away from young children! Even a small breed dog is capable of killing an infant! So no dog is safe around your baby or very young child! My parents weren’t the best in the world by far but they made sure that the dogs weren’t able to have access to my young cousins and older siblings infants, especially when unattended!
Wolf is sometimes mixed into sledding dogs to give them more stamina.
That said, there’s zero reason for anything, other than a professional musher, to own one.
Add to that the actually horrifying means of breeding them. A female husky or GSD is staked out in the vicinity where the breeder suspects a loose juvenile male wolf. The female is helpless and more often than not, the wolf will kill her. It takes several tries to find a female he will breed with, most times. That alone makes it severe animal cruelty.
Then there’s the dangers of wolf dogs and northern breeds with babies. That’s been well-documented. The Inuit didn’t have this problem because they treat their dogs like working animals and pups are culled if they show aggression towards humans. This is why sled dogs are utter crap as household guard dogs.
All dogs need to understand that babies are off-limits. I cringe every time I see videos of dogs with infants laying on them, or eating with them, or anything else. All dogs should be taught “Not Yours” around infants and toddlers.
These are preventable tragedies. Not only is it dangerous for children, if people love their dogs they’d stop treating them like their child’s “sibling” just for TikTok views and risk having to put their dog down as well.
It just keeps getting worse. People refuse to acknowledge distinct breed traits. Why not just get a normal dog of a breed that’s never killed a human?
On my local Nextdoor, the majority of the loose dogs are huskies because too many people won’t learn about and make allowance for their unique traits. And then you have the people with pits, pit mixes, cane corsos, and the like who are rehoming–even after a bite. Everyone makes excuses and says these dogs are just so sweet and must have been protecting their owners or some such nonsense. Disgusting.
Humans and dogs are suffering, and changing public knowledge and perception feels like a hopeless endeavor. This case is so sad, and I can’t begin to imagine the trauma of seeing your baby being carried around in your dog’s jaws.
Wolfdog example: https://res-5.cloudinary.com/embark/image/upload/a_0,b_white,c_fit,h_2000,q_auto,w_766/v1/ui/os8rclsgcewzrxjlfakp
Unscrupulous people create animals that have no place in nature and don’t belong in homes or neighborhoods either.
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9 deaths in November …
Numbers still, can not express quantity of pain, fear and horror , this humans have been exposed to ….
Pain and grief of people who outlived the victims, not specified …
There is no rational reason to cross wolves with dogs. If one were trying to develop a new breed of dog with dog temperament and wolf looks, a large number of puppies would be euthanized or they would end up in homes unsuitable for wolves. Wolves kill cats, dogs, squirrels, etc. Breeding dogs to wolves is insane.
“National and international attention….” The increased attention is great, but I suspect it is because of the word “wolf”. People see it as the wild animal attacking people….danger! But pits can kill and maim….it’s just an accident.
What is wrong with people?! Keeping a dang wolf hybrid around a baby, heck a child of any age, is INSANITY. Why do people think keeping predators around infants is in anyway acceptable? This was always a disaster waiting to happen. Rest in Peace to that dear child.
I hope at LEAST social services takes the 2 foster children out of that household. They never should’ve been put there in the first place!!