Three generations of pit bull advocacy culminate in death of a baby

“Please don’t let dogs around children,”  young mother pleads,  days too late for her daughter

ALABASTER,  Alabama––Three generations of pit bull advocacy,  rescue,  fostering,  bottle-feeding puppies,  and breeding,  going back at least to Anna Bella Southard’s grandmother Katherine Southard Reece,  president of Chilton Friends of Animals,  caught up to the Southard family on March 14,  2025.

Explained Anna Bella Southard in a series of Facebook postings beginning three days later,  “My daughter,”  six-month-old Ember Rene Southard,  nicknamed Noodle,  “was lost last Friday.  It feels sickening to know I’m having to put my daughter in the ground.

“Please use my child as an example”

“Please don’t let dogs around children,”  Anna Bella Southard pleaded.  “Please practice safe sleep.  My daughter was killed while I wasn’t home,”  taking her grandmother to a medical appointment, “after a family member fell asleep with her and she fell off.  A dog then attacked her.

“Please,”  Anna Bella Southard repeated.  “Use my child as an example.  Don’t fall asleep holding children on couches /chairs. Don’t allow your children around dogs.  The dog that killed my baby was 11 years old,  and had been around numerous kids.  There’s no reason to allow them around each other.

“Everyone knew how strict I am with my safe sleep protocols and making sure the kids weren’t around dogs like that,”  Anna Bella Southard said.

“It was an American bully who belonged to my grandparents”

“It was an American bully who belonged to my grandparents,”  Bella Southard confirmed.

Anna Bella Southard and her husband Jessie Brooks “also have a 18 month old toddler,”  a relative posted.

They are in fact known for being careful about some potential threats to children.  Anna Bella Southard’s testimony in February 2023 helped send serial child rapist Charles Daniel Goggins to prison for 20 years,  as she posted to her Facebook page.

But exactly when and why Anna Bella Southard became cautious about pit bulls––if she really did––is unclear.

“American bully shirts”

On April 25,  2024,  for instance,  she posted an advertisement on behalf of “good friends” who “breed great dogs!” and sell “American bully shirts” modeled by toddlers.

On May 11,  2024,  praising a friend’s “Squirts Stickers,”  Anna Bella Southard lamented that “The community is SEVERELY lacking in Presa Canario art.”

What are “American bully shirts” worn by children and Presa Canario stickers if not child-oriented advertisements for “bully-breed” dogs who as a category have killed nearly 900 Americans in 45 years,  twice as many as all other dog breeds combined?

“It is okay to put a human-aggressive dog down!”

Just a month later,  on June 12,  2024,  Anna Bella Southard posted an essay headlined “It is okay to put a human-aggressive dog down!

“You will see me say A LOT,”  Anna Bella Southard began,  “that dog aggression,  and any form of animal aggression,  is not a reason to euthanize a dog before exhausting every other option, including surrendering the dog.”

In so saying,  Anna Bella Southard bought into the myth long propagated by pit bull advocates that there is any distinction between “human-aggressive” and “dog-aggressive” behavior,  a myth utterly refuted by the abundance of pit bull attacks in which both other dogs and humans are immediate victims.

“If the dog redirects aggression to you,  euthanize it.”

“That being said,”  Anna Bella Southard continued,  “it is perfectly okay to euthanize your human-aggressive dog. Especially if the dog is reactive,  and terrified all the time.  There are a lot of components to behavioral euthanasia.

“A dog who nips when uncomfortable or ignored,”  Anna Bella Southard said,  “is not the same as a dog that is uncertain of itself and reacts out of fear.

“If you’re constantly terrified of your dog biting someone because it is a bite risk, euthanize it,”  Anna Bella Southard advised.  “You should never be scared of your own dog if it is stable. The moment that dog is unstable,  euthanize it.

“If the dog redirects aggression to you,  euthanize it.

“If the dog is a danger to you and your family constantly,  euthanize it.  That’s not fair for either of you to live like that.”

Redirected her own argument

But Anna Bella Southard then redirected her own argument to pretexts for not euthanizing a dangerous dog.

“You getting bit for disrespecting your dog isn’t a reason to euthanize one,”  Anna Bella Southard said.  “Including kids disrespecting the dog.  Don’t poke it in the eye,  pull at it,  sit on it, whatever.”

What about a baby falling on a dog?

The human-and-dog relationship evolved in the first place around a tacit agreement that humans would feed and not harm dogs if dogs would refrain from harming humans,  especially children,  but more than 500 generations of selectively breeding pit bulls for hyper-reactivity,  attacking without restraint or relent,  have undone the very basis of the bargain.

“I regret not euthanizing three dogs”

“I regret not euthanizing three dogs before letting them leave my yard,”  Anna Bella Southard finished.  “Nothing good has come of those three.  But legally they weren’t mine.  Had they been,  I would have personally had my vet euthanize them for their issues.  Only one that I know of has a happy-ish life, and even then it’s with heavy management.”

Ember Rene Southard was the third dog attack fatality in Alabama in the first three months of 2025,  and the eighteenth dog attack fatality in Alabama since 2020.

Alabama dog attack fatalities,  2020––

In order,  from the most recent back:

Patricia Burt, 78,  was killed on February 24,  2025 near Valley,  Alabama,  by two Cane Corsos belonging to her neighbor David Kelley,  a Cane Corso breeder.  (See Old & young country girls in UK & Alabama trusted wrong friends’ dogs.)

Amanda Hutchins Born,  46,  was killed on February 6,  2025 while feeding a pack of pit bull mixes near Echola,  Alabama.  (See Cincinnati pit bull death indictment; owners guilty in Circleville pit death case.)

Francisco Batz-Lux,  42,  was killed by dogs unknown in a trailer park on December 22,  2024,  in Albertville, Alabama.

Renona Ewing,  62,  was killed in a pen near Berry,  Alabama,  on July 11,  2024,  by her own “Bully XL” pit bull.

Courtney Williams Cox,  35,  was killed by two pit bulls leading a mixed pack of 13 dogs in all in Quitman,  Alabama,  on May 9,  2024.  One of three children with Cox was critically injured  (See Georgia mom-of-three extends Mother’s Day week run of pit bull fatalities.)

Willard Norton,  83,  was killed by a neighbor’s two pit bulls on June 2, 2024,  in Town Creek, Alabama.  (See Roses, whitewash, & a glittery mall can’t hide pit bull pack bloody mayhem.)

Mark Alan Partain,  2,  was killed on March 1,  2024,  in New Hope,  Alabama,  by a neighbor’s pit bull.  (See UPDATE: Four toddlers killed by dogs in 10 days: lessons yet to be learned.)

Beau Clark, 4,  was killed on February 26,  2024, in  Hartselle,  Alabama,  by his family’s Olde English Bulldog,  a pit bull variant.  His father was injured.  (See UPDATE: Four toddlers killed by dogs in 10 days: lessons yet to be learned.)

Leo Caddel,  three months,  was killed by a wolf hybrid in his grandparents’ kitchen on November 30,  2023,  in Chelsea, Alabama.  (See Alabama wolf hybrid baby killing: Jack London knew “bastard wolves”.)

Sharon Kaye Billups Portis,  63,  was killed on November 11, 2023,  in Birmingham,  Alabama,  by a pack of three pit bulls.  (See If dogs kill your mama or grandma, don’t expect the law to give a damn.)

Jonirus Davis,  31,  a sanitation worker in Lowndes County,  Alabama,  fell off a garbage truck and was crushed beneath the wheels while under attack by pit bull on November 1, 2023.  (See Halloween 2023: three dead by pit bull in 24 hours.)

Demarcus “Sam” Kenzie II,  27,  was killed in a pack attack by dogs with a prior history of dangerous behavior on July 29, 2023,  in Skipperville,  Alabama.  (See Pit bull death of 93-year-old woman ends streak of 4 killings of adult men.)

Joe Cleveland Scott,  73,  was killed by a six-dog dog pack including pit bull, boxer,  and German shepherd/Malinois mixes on February 28, 2023 in McDonald Chapel,  Alabama.(See Riverside County, California extends lead in fatal dog attacks.)

Jacqueline Summer Beard, 58, was killed by a pack of as many as seven pit bulls on April 29,  2022 in Red Bay, Alabama.  (See Five pit bull attack deaths in five days: these were the victims.)

Michelle Sheeks, 44,  died on July 12,  2022,  nearly three months after being injured in the April 28 attack that also led to the death of Alabama Public Health Department worker Jacqueline Summer Beard.  (See Georgia pit bull owner hit with rare criminal charges in mother’s death.)

Rhonda Persall, 57,  was killed in a three-dog attack on May 22,  2022, in Jones Chapel, Alabama.

Frank Jerome Cobb,  70,  was killed by a pit bull running at large on September 21,  2021 in Phenix City,  Alabama.  (See Six pit bull-related deaths linked to “The Wickedest City in America”)

Ruthie Mae Brown, 36,  was killed in an unwitnessed pack attack on October 19,  2020 in Nauvoo, Alabama.

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