The husky that bit off a young boy’s hand in Layton won’t be euthanized, although the dog and its fellow husky will not be returning to their home.
Davis County Animal Control staffers met with the owners of Polar and Bear on Tuesday, according to a news release, and offered to drop several citations if the owners agreed to surrender the animals. The owners initially refused, but later agreed to allow the dogs to be relocated to an animal sanctuary, ending legal action against them.
The owners were facing two citations for possession of dangerous animals and two for abatement of public nuisance animals.
The dogs were quarantined by Davis County Animal Control after the March 3 incident, in which one of the animals bit a 4-year-old neighbor boy’s arm with enough force to sever it above the wrist. Layton Fire officials said the boy had been reaching under a fence into the yard where the huskies were kept when he was bitten; the boy’s mother disputed that account on social media, claiming the dogs reached under the fence and attacked the boy.
The boy underwent emergency surgery; the hand was never located.
The incident became a social-media flashpoint. An online petition to spare the huskies’ lives garnered nearly a quarter of a million signatures; an online fund soliciting donations for the boy and his family also was established.
