Young Georgia Girl Killed by Dog

5 year old Chyenne Peppers is dead today after being fatally attacked by three 'pit bulls' owned by her family.  The little girl was out playing in the yard, by herself, possibly on a trampoline with the three dogs in the back yard. One of the dogs was pregnant, the other two were chained up and in the excitement of the girl playing in the yard, broke their chains and attacked the girl.

She died shortly after.

The attack happened in Thomasville, GA -- a small community in South Georgia -- that incidentally has about 18% of the population living below the poverty line (the national average is about 12%).

Police had been to the residence before for calls about the dogs running loose and being aggressive in the neighborhood.

Leaving such a young girl alone playing with a pack of dogs, 2 of which are chained, and the dogs had a history of aggressive behavior, is just a bad idea.  We MUST start talking about what causes these attacks so parents and owners can recognize the warning signs before such a tragedy occurs.

Comments

[TONY]

Hopefully people might start to listen about why treating animals this way is a bad idea. Although I'm sure the anti-pit bull front will say, "well, if it were any other dog they would have let the girl be."

I also take it that the dogs were not altered, were they? Maybe some backyard breeding?

On a different matter: From what my bro-in-law is telling me from his time in Texas so far, in the surrounding parts of Houston; dogs (most of them pit bulls)are left to roam free, sometimes in packs, mainly strays. Post hurricane conditions for animals still bad.

[Carianne]

Looks like GA had another canine attack that put a grown woman into critical care, http://www.walb.com/global/story.asp?s=9627429 . No mention of the breed. 5 roaming dogs.

[Rinalia]

Similar case out of whitton, new south wales in australia. Two little girls wander into neighbor's backyard where they are mauled by one or all four of the resident dogs (i.e. not "family" pets but backyard dogs). One of the girls died, the other is seriously harmed.

Whitton too is a poor area with more than twice the unemployment rate and earning well below the national average. Both the NSW and GA case are exceedingly rare and while it's great to teach both parents and children the benefits of proper dog interaction, I just don't believe that dog bite fatalities will disappear - not unless we stop having predators with sharp teeth as pets.

[MichelleD]

Good point R...do we really need more education on "don't leave your little kids alone with vicious dogs" or "don't let your vicious dogs run loose" or "don't smoke crack while you're prego"? You can't fix stupid afterall...

We can probably still reduce bites but fatalities are soooo rare - I think we'd better spend our time on social services so a 9 year old boy can't just "disappear" and 16 year olds don't drown their babies in the toilet.

3 dogs - two of them had to be the same sex and since one was preg you wonder if the little girl was breaking up a fight. Remember the fatality they tried to blame on the "family" dog that was actually just their to breed the bitch? Little kid tried to break it up thinking the male was hurting his dog. Man, this stuff is heartbreaking...

Maybe if the Houston ASPCA would spend more time doing their duties than posing for the cameras they wouldn't have such a problem.

[Brent]

Rinalia,

I agree that it is unlikely that we will ever get fatalities to disappear. They're so rare -- but there will always be those situations with the wrong dog/owner/situation leads to this. As Michelle noted, even with all of the information out there about seat belts, smoking, etc, people still do things that are bad for them.

I do think we have a LONG way to go in teaching people how to go when it comes to dog owner education. How many people still tether their dogs as a primary form of containment. Or never socialize them? Or use them as guard dogs? or let them roam free at night instead of taking them out for a walk? Or the number of well-educated co-workers I have that come to me with questions about their "out of control" dog - -and when I ask when the last time they walked the dog was, they say it's probably been 6 months or so...

We certainly have a long way to go on the canine behavior front...IMO.

[doug]

Michelle said it when "you cant fix stupid".

I wonder if the either of the parents of the victim had a criminal past?

Sounds like a good canidate for DOL....

[btoellner]

I'm going to say that we should lay off the family here. Certainly there was a huge series of mistakes made in this one...but they've paid a bigger price for this than most of us could even imagine. With the large amount of mis-information out there when it comes to dogs, it's not terribly surprising that these people made a series of mistakes. Tragic...and so very preventable.

[Selma]

"As more and more things become a felony, we end up with more and more felons".

I forget where I got that from but it's so true.

Funny, do we ask if parents have a rap sheet if their kid runs out and gets hit by a car, or if they drown in a swimming pool?

We need to walk a line between panicking every time some kid gets bitten and bleeds out and not seeing the commonality among these kinds of incidents.

As for keeping predators, come on, Rinalia. I know you are probably joking but there's no predator on the planet more dangerous than us. Besides, dogs lean more towards scavenging than hunting if left to their own devices.

[MichelleD]

In 2005, there were 3,582 fatal unintentional drownings in the United States, averaging ten deaths per day. An additional 710 people died, from drowning and other causes, in boating-related incidents.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/drown.htm

My niece is driving and will have her full blown license in May. It INFURIATES me that all this attention is placed on dogs when: Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens, accounting for more than one in three deaths in this age group.1 In 2005, twelve teens ages 16 to 19 died every day from motor vehicle injuries.

TWELVE A DAY!!! WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE!!??!!

[doug]

In order to do proper research it is a fair question to find out if the family has a criminal history....

If we are going to ask questions about the dogs history....was it tied up, was it altered, did it have a history of aggresion, was it abused etc.....

What if we find out that the family had a past history of dog fighting or running a puppy mill.

All realtive questions to preventing this from happening in the future..

By the way I do not know of any felons which I hang with....and I dont really hang with chruch going folk....

If someone is convicted of a Felony, the probably did something wrong....and as you said since "man is the most dangerous predator on the planet" dont you think we should label people as "Felons" to distinguish the rest of us law abiding citizens from those who choose a path of crime (no matter how short).

[TEH]

CDC recently added to their website additional information on childhood injuries.

http://www.cdc.gov/safechild/Child_Injury_Data.htm

You can also see this by state. What is clear is dog bites while certainly an important and highly preventable issue, or at least can be minimized, the risk of injury or death to a child or adult is more from other areas, like traffic related, falls, drownings...but no one really thinks of this as risk. People who advocate BSL look at the DBRF and scream, look how many people are being killed by pitbulls! Yet, you are probably more likely to die in some other more mundane way. But people can always tell you they "know" that pitbulls kill, that you never hear of another dog. The rarity of the DBRF makes them big news, so that yes, the information goes all over the media. There is certainly a "fear factor" that gives the impression that this happens far more frequently.....or the added association of "pitbulls" with crime, drugs, etc etc.

It is very very scary that peoples actions are dictated by their fears, with out any real understanding of what the risk really is.

[Rinalia]

Brent, I agree that education is great. Improving the lives of dogs is important and I'm all for it. It's just frustrating that these statistically insignificant events (dbrfs) are treated as common, that we need to start legislating to fix a problem that doesn't exist.

No Selma, I'm not joking. I would be a little baffled if you were to seriously argue that dogs are not predators. They have the behavior and physical abilities to predate on other animals...and they often do. I don't disagree that humans are statistically more dangerous, but my point still stands - if you want to eliminate dog bites, stop having dogs as pets. I think that would be a silly reaction, of course, much like I think the overblown public reaction to dog bites/fatalities is also a bit silly.

[Rinalia]

Sorry for the double comment, if I could edit my comment I would.

I wanted to clarify that by "problem" I mean "being killed by dogs" not that fixing animal welfare concerns is a non issue or that education is unimportant.

[Selma]

I agree Rinalia, and have said all along that the only way to prevent dog bites is to eliminate dogs.

Dogs really are more at home scavenging than hunting in the wild. I've observed many packs of feral dogs first-hand. Of course they hunt as well, but I'm convinced their preference is to root around looking for easier meals :>)

I've been hanging out with dogs since I was crawling. I've been bitten twice, not seriously, both times before the age of six. Since then, nada, except for accidental tooth scrapes. Yet, I hang out with dogs all the time.

Doug, in AZ, if you are caught going 20 mph over the speed limit on a highway it's a felony. None of your friends have ever exceeded the speed limit? That's just one example of what I meant. A guy in Phoneix wants to make not picking up dog poop a felony. Felons can't vote in the US. Information about the dogs is part of the factual info about the story. The personal problems of the family are really nobody's business but their own. jmo

[Selma]

I agree Rinalia, and have said all along that the only way to prevent dog bites is to eliminate dogs.

Dogs really are more at home scavenging than hunting in the wild. I've observed many packs of feral dogs first-hand. Of course they hunt as well, but I'm convinced their preference is to root around looking for easier meals :>)

I've been hanging out with dogs since I was crawling. I've been bitten twice, not seriously, both times before the age of six. Since then, nada, except for accidental tooth scrapes. Yet, I hang out with dogs all the time.

Doug, in AZ, if you are caught going 20 mph over the speed limit on a highway it's a felony. None of your friends have ever exceeded the speed limit? That's just one example of what I meant. A guy in Phoneix wants to make not picking up dog poop a felony. Felons can't vote in the US. Information about the dogs is part of the factual info about the story. The personal problems of the family are really nobody's business but their own. jmo

[Selma]

I agree Rinalia, and have said all along that the only way to prevent dog bites is to eliminate dogs.

Dogs really are more at home scavenging than hunting in the wild. I've observed many packs of feral dogs first-hand. Of course they hunt as well, but I'm convinced their preference is to root around looking for easier meals :>)

I've been hanging out with dogs since I was crawling. I've been bitten twice, not seriously, both times before the age of six. Since then, nada, except for accidental tooth scrapes. Yet, I hang out with dogs all the time.

Doug, in AZ, if you are caught going 20 mph over the speed limit on a highway it's a felony. None of your friends have ever exceeded the speed limit? That's just one example of what I meant. A guy in Phoneix wants to make not picking up dog poop a felony. Felons can't vote in the US. Information about the dogs is part of the factual info about the story. The personal problems of the family are really nobody's business but their own. jmo

[doug]

I am sure that there are several classifications of Felonies.....I know in Florida we have at least three....

So even thought a person caught documenting the wrong price on an autosale may be a Felon, the person does not have the same felony as a murderer.

So lets just say Class 1 Felons would qualify.

Now a days its pretty easy to go 20 miles over the speed limit with the power and handling of todays cars. However, I would say that if you are going 50 miles over is a different story...(maybe not in Canada 70 MPH over).

As far as the people's back ground, it is nobodies business, unless they own a dog which kills someone. Then everything is in play, you may not like it...but it is relevant to the topic....there is nothing you can do to bring back the little girl....but learning as much as we can from the event is important....

I want to hear more than just the Talking Points....

.....Child Unsupervised
.....Dog Tethered
.....Past Signs of Aggression
.....Dogs Not Altered (what ever this has to do with the price of tea in China)

This sounds almost like the last Physic reading I had....

The person with the Crystal ball said....I would have to make an improtant decision about family or work in the next month...I would have a new person come into my life....I will feel great joy and some sadness in the next month....

In other words...who has not left their children alone with the dam dog....its why we get dogs so kids can play with them...who has not tied the dog to a chain and left them in the yard for a time being...and what dog has not nipped at another animal, person or growled when he was around food.

[Brent]

Doug,

I understand why you want to know about the family -- what I want to be very cautious of is making assumptions. Many of your 'potential' accusations included things like Dog Fighting -- which is a lot extreme. There doesn't appear to be any evidence of that here -- it mostly just appears to be someone who didn't know a whole lot about dogs, that didn't keep them properly, and set their dogs up to fail - -and they did.

[MichelleD]

http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=9645393&nav=menu57_2

Baby killed by being put in a clothes dryer. 1200+ children a year are killed by their parent or primary care giver by abuse and neglect. This stat does not include outright murder.

[doug]

MADD
SADD
Cindy Shehann
NOW
Planned Parrent Hood
Regilious Right
Amnesty International
Red Cross
DCF
UNICEF
CARE
PLO
GREENPEACE
SEA SHEPHERD
America's Most Wanted

No one is saying there is not a lot more pressing crap that is out there...but we have over 320 million people in America...we have to pick something different...we can all be behind one cause...your just lucky you can count on me to help.