A dog at the Flagler Humane Society attacked a volunteer on Thursday (Dec. 5), severely injuring the volunteer, who was hospitalized at Halifax hospital in Daytona Beach. The dog, a pit bull terrier mix, was euthanized.









The dog, a stray, had been picked up on Nov. 22 after property owners on John Anderson Highway in Flagler Beach reported that the dog had showed up on their property. A Humane Society staff member brought the gray male terrier mix to the society, reporting that the dog acted in a friendly way when being picked up. “There was no signs of aggression,” Amy Carotenuto, the society’s director, said. “He was strong.”

No one called the society looking for the dog matching its description, nor were any reports filed. A few days later the dog was neutered and vaccinated, and given a name: Slurpy.

Thursday afternoon one of the society’s volunteers was walking Slurpee when the dog attacked her, “mouthing her arm,” according to Kyndra Mott, a society staffer. “By the time I got to her she had gotten away from the dog and closed the gate to the yard,” Mott reported. The dog had ripped the volunteer’s clothes. “She stumbled forward and kneeled on the ground, said, ‘I need medical attention.'”

Mott called 911. “During the call I saw how much blood she was losing and ran to get towels to apply pressure,” Mott wrote. She also alerted medicfal staff in the facility, who ran out to help.

Slurpy’s equivalent of an identification card at the society listed him as a 4-year-old 68-pound, blue terrier mix, with no bite history–at least not until the Dec. 5 incident.

Carotenuto said the victim, who’d been volunteering for the society for a few months, was released from Halifax hospital late Friday afternoon, and would be requiring physical therapy as her right arm heals from the attack.