SALT LAKE CITY—Utah authorities say a dog bit off a 4-year-old boy’s hand after he stuck his arm through a fence to try to play with the animal.
Fire department officials in the city of Layton say the child was airlifted Sunday, March 3, to a Salt Lake City hospital and was in serious but stable condition.
Battalion Chief Jason Cook says the boy had a sock on his arm when he put it through a gap between the ground and a solid vinyl fence in his backyard toward two huskies living next door.
His family tried to limit the bleeding until emergency workers arrived.
Authorities couldn’t find his hand and are almost certain the dog ingested it.
Research On Dog Bite Incidents
Karen Delise, research director for the National Canine Research Council and author of “The Pitbull Placebo,” has investigated hundreds of dog bite incidents.She wrote in a now-taken down article: “My study of dog bite-related fatalities occurring over the past five decades has identified the poor ownership/management practices involved in the overwhelming majority of these incidents: owners obtaining dogs, and maintaining them as resident dogs outside of regular, positive human interaction, often for negative functions (i.e. guarding/protection, fighting, intimidation/status).”
Also contributing negative functions include “owners failing to humanely contain, control, and maintain their dogs (chained dogs, loose roaming dogs, cases of abuse/neglect); owners failing to knowledgably supervise interaction between children and dogs; and owners failing to spay or neuter dogs not used for competition, show, or in a responsible breeding program,” she added.