When Dogs Attack Pups, French Bookstore for Kids Temporarily Shuts Doors

The owner of a French language children’s bookstore on the Upper East Side kept five German shepherds on the premises that have reportedly attacked at least four tiny neighborhood pooches, prompting one of the tiny hounds to be euthanized. The store appeared to have been shuttered for several days when Straus News visited on August 9. The owner claims dog haters are trying to shut her down for good.

One of the attacked pups, a toy poodle named “Baby” had to be euthanized after a white German shepherd named “Syko” owned by the store’s owner Lynda Hudson attacked on Aug. 3, breaking the smaller dog’s spine, according to the owner of the now deceased pooch.

The story about the menacing dogs attacking a smaller pooch was first reported by Nora Wesson of the Upper East Site news site https://www.uppereastsite.com/dog-mauled-la-librarie-des-enfants-upper-east-side/. New York Times also reported on the incident on Aug. 7.

The book store’s web site boasts it is the only shop of its kind catering to French literature for children and boasts over 3,000 books. The shop, which was opened by Hudson in 2016, also runs a children’s lending library of French kids’ books.

But it also harbors some huge menacing dogs that have terrorized tiny pooches in the neighborhood, according to reports. The bookstore owner claims dog haters are trying to shut down her business.

”I saw the dogs being walked the other day and they all had muzzles on,” Darrell Philips, a doorman at a building down the block told Straus News on Aug. 9. “I love dogs but those big ass dogs with muzzles, you knew something was bound to happen. They’re the only dogs on the block with muzzles on.”

Yelp blocked new posts from appearing due to “unusual activity,” after news of the four attacks was published by Upper East Site, and the New York Times on Aug. 7 and the New York Post on August 8 and Aug. 10. But Yelp did allow viewers to see recent past reviews before the block was put in place.

“This is not a library for kids.,” wrote one on Aug. 7th. “Its a front, the owners BREED German shepards (sic) out of the building. Just this week 2 German Shepards of their’s attacked a small dog on the street, literally tearing it apart, and killed it while it was on a walk with it’s mom. The ladies in the nail salon who watched it happened (sic) said it was the THIRD TIME THIS YEAR. SHUT THIS PLACE DOWN.”

That was referring to tiny dog owner Akiba Tripp, who told the Times she was walking her 9 lb toy poodle called “Baby” when it was attacked by one of the German shepherds named “Syko” on Aug. 7. The larger dog broke the spine of “Baby” and she had to be euthanized, Tripp told the paper.

”My dog is dead,” Tripp, a personal trainer, told the Times. “Those dogs should have been away a long time ago.”

Hudson said she is going to keep the dogs at her new Westchester home and will no longer bring them to the city. And she says since the stories in the New York Times and the New York Post, dog haters are trying to shut her business down.

But according to the Times, “Baby” was at least the fourth dog attacked. Julia Schafer, who lives nearby, told the Times that her husband was walking their small collie mix “Tarsilla” on May 3 when it was also attacked by “Syko.”

”The white one bit her and held onto her,” Schafer told the Times. Hudson reportedly paid the $850 vet bill from that attack.

Four days later, a Cavachon named Chole and a Malitpoo named Muppet–both small dogs–were walking past the shop when the German shepherds struck again.

”Next thing I know this big white dog [Syko] had my dog in her mouth,” Chole’s owner Laurie Davis told the Times. “I’m screaming at the top of my lungs.” She said one of Hudson’s other German shepherds bit Muppet.

Davis sued Hudson in small claims court and Hudson agreed to pay the vet bill. Davis told the newspaper she had reported the dog to the police, which said it did not have jurisdiction over dog-on-dog violence and then she reported the incident to the city health department’s animal bite unit.

She said Hudson claimed to the bite unit that it was the first time the dogs had attacked and that she planned to take the dogs out of the city, so the city agency did not pursue further action.

Hudson paid the bill to have “Baby” unthenized and told the Times she is considering putting “Syko” down as well. “There really is something wrong with “Syko” and I don’t know what to do,”Hudson tearfullly told the Times.

Efforts by Straus News to reach Hudson were not successful. The phone number listed on the web site is no longer in service. A sign on the front door of the store said that the shop was going to close on Aug. 7 but would be back on Aug. 8. Straus News visited on Aug. 9 and it was still closed.

One shopkeeper on the street who did not want to be give his name said the dogs were “scary” and the shop usually opens early in the morning and generally stayed open way past its closing time of 7 pm.

Hudson, who was originally from France, said that she is being harrassed after the news broke. “They’re not letting me work. They’re bombarding me with threats, calling me names,” Hudson told the New York Post.

“They’re calling my landlord, they’re trying to get me out of business.”

CORRECTION: The initial story in Our Town on the dog attacks had credited the New York Times with breaking the news online on Aug. 3rd. But the NYT story actually appeared on Aug. 7 and the initial story had appeared in the digital news site Upper East Site earlier in the day on Aug. 7.