Toddler dies from dog attack in South Georgia

A 3 year old Wayne County, GA boy, Dustin Elijah Fauk-ner, was attacked and killed by his neighbor's dog on Sunday. 

The dog, a Husky that had played with Eli before, was chained up and somehow broke free from her collar.  The boy was walking with a 5 year old girl and got a sand spur in his shoe and cried out to the girl as he tried to remove it. The dog broke free from the collar and attacked the young boy.

The owner of the dog pulled the dog off the boy and shot the dog.

Officials are not commenting on why the young children were out alone and unsupervised -- but according to reports, the young boy has been left alone on multiple occassions.  And I still contend that leaving a dog chained up as its primary form of containment is setting an animal up to fail.

Meanwhile, I want to comment on the media coverage (or non-coverage) of this. I honestly wouldn't even have caught this story had someone nearby not sent me the article. The only media outlet to pick this up happened to be the small local newspaper the Jesup Press Sentinel (circulation 8,000).  Whereas a lot of fairly minor 'pit bull' incidents have made big news from multiple news sources this week, a fatal incident involving a Husky and a young child is not big news. 

Until we start covering incidences based on circumstances we will not make a dent in the problem of dog bites and attacks.

My heart goes out to the family of the young boy and the owner of the dog who is responsible as he deals with the guilt of what happened.

Comments

[Melinda]

I think the media gives people a false sense of security. People think if they dont own a pit bull that they are safe. They really need to report ALL fatal dog bites and even non fatal attacks that cause major harm. I think many would be surprised that even a small dog and can and has caused permanent life long damage.