An eight-year-old girl has lost a hand and remains in hospital after she was attacked by a dog in the Hunter region of NSW.

Police were called to a house on The Park Chase in Valentine Gardens Estate in Valentine, a suburb of Lake Macquarie, just after 3pm on Saturday.

The Park Chase, in Valentine Gardens Estate, where an eight-year-old girl lost a hand after she put her arm under a fence to pat one of the three Alaskan Malamutes who live there. Credit:Marina Neil

They found the girl with injuries below her right elbow.

She was rushed to Newcastle's John Hunter Hospital for emergency surgery on Saturday night, but the operation was unsuccessful and her hand was unable to be saved, police said.