“Dogman” & cocker Floyd Boudreaux, 91, outlived 3-month-old pit bull victim

Grandfather died trying to save baby from pit bull rampage

BROUSSARD,  Louisiana;  TULLAHOMA,  Tennessee––If death and justice were equivalent,  three-month-old Khelani Taylor of Tullahoma,  Tennessee,  killed by pit bulls along with her grandfather James Alexander Smith,  50,  on December 3  2025,  might have lived to age 91 or beyond,  while alleged dogfighter,  cockfighter,  pit bull breeder,  and pit bull popularizer Floyd Joseph Boudreaux,  91,  of Broussard,  Louisiana,  who died a day later,  might have had a one-way ticket to hell punched quite a long time ago.

If for nothing else,  Floyd Boudreaux might have been condemned for trying to pass as a poet,  for example with a doggerel verse asserting of pit bulls,  “In the pit he is powerful,  fierce,  and wild,  but at home he will sleep with the smallest child.”

Victims of pit bull nightmare

Khelani Taylor and her grandfather might thereby be described as victims of a pit bull nightmare that has now killed at least 776 Americans just since 1982,  60 of them in 2025 alone.

All other dog breed types combined,  94% of the total U.S. dog population,  have killed 375 Americans over the same time span,  including 19 in 2025.

According to his Mourning.com obituary,  Floyd Boudreaux was born on September 17, 1934 in Bristol, Louisiana,  the beloved son of Clayon Boudreaux and Marie Louise Leger Boudreaux.

Reported Michael Perlstein for the Newhouse news service on June 7  2005,  “Floyd Boudreaux,  in a coffee table book of photographs by Marc Joseph called American Pitbull,  described growing up as the son of a dogman.

“I had ’em before I went to grade school.”

“I’ve been working with the breed over half a century,”  Floyd Boudreaux said.  “I also have chickens.  My dad had ’em before I did,  and then I had ’em before I went to grade school.  My son, too.  It’s always been a family affair.”

Explained Perlstein,  “Before it was made illegal in 1982,  dogfighting was a fixture of Cajun country alongside cockfighting.  Floyd Boudreaux grew up in an era when pit bull fights were a Saturday draw at rural nightclubs.”

Later,  “Cockfighting,  with its spectacle of death,”  legal in Louisiana until August 2008,  “was like a sideshow at these throw-downs,  held in a barn or closed pit away from those with no stomach for it,” Perlstein wrote.

“Dog matches,  far bloodier and more protracted than the rooster fights,  were staged even deeper into the shadows,”  protected by the Ku Klux Klan,  who for close to a century bought off  local sheriffs who might have enforced anti-gambling laws and Sunday “blue laws” meant to favor churchgoing over entertainment,  in exchange for a cut of the animal fighting proceeds.

“The world’s most vicious fighting dogs”

The Floyd Boudreaux pit bull line,  Perlstein continued,  was “revered for producing the world’s most vicious fighting dogs.  Long-dead legends include Blind Billy,  Maverick, Napoleon,”  and among the living until the Boudreaux dog yard was raided by law enforcement on March 11,  2005,  “Reno,  the ‘grand champion’ fighter and aging stud.”

Perlstein described “the family’s fleet of rusted cars and pickups,  the weather-beaten wood-frame house where Floyd Boudreaux lived with his wife,  and behind that the double-wide trailer where son Guy Boudreaux,”  charged with Floyd Boudreaux,  “lived with his 10-year-old son.

“Old tires,  rusted pipes,  piles of lumber and rolls of chain-link fence surrounded a tar-paper workshop and rickety rooster shack,”  Perlstein continued.

“Despite their primitive living conditions, the dogs––all bred from the prized Boudreaux bloodline––were hearty,  healthy and,  together,  valued at more than $300,000,”  according to then-Louisiana SPCA director Laura Maloney,  herself a pit bull enthusiast but not a fan of dogfighting.

Forty gamecocks impounded with the pit bulls

“The dogs,  along with items ranging from anabolic steroids to exercise treadmills to computer records and videos,  were evidence enough to book Floyd Boudreaux,  then 70,  and Guy Boudreaux,  then 40,  on charges of animal cruelty,  illegal possession of steroids,  possession of a sawed-off shotgun,  and 64 counts of dogfighting.”

Forty alleged gamecocks were impounded in the same raid.

The Boudreauxs contended through their lawyers that they no longer bred or trained their pit bulls for fighting,  or participated in dogfighting.  Instead,  the lawyers insisted,  “These dogs were used for hunting,  shows,  competitive weight pulling,  and as pets.”

But there was scant mention of hunting,  shows,  competitive weight pulling,  and petting pit bulls in the hundreds of tributes to Floyd Boudreaux posted online in the first days after his death––in just one of the many postings.

Floyd Boudreaux compared to John P. Colby

At least 41 Floyd Boudreaux friends and associates,  however,  used  the “scratch line” that pit bulls cross to initiate a fight as a metaphor for his death.

Some compared Floyd Boudreaux to John P. Colby (1875-1941),  the Newburyport,  Massachusetts dogfighter who originated the “Staffordshire” breed name,  exporting fighting pit bulls to England as well as fighting them locally,  selling his culls as pets.

Colby notoriously often posed his “Staffordshire” pit bulls with children.  One of Colby’s pit bulls in 1909 killed his 2-year-old nephew, Bert Colby Leadbetter.

Colby continued to openly advertise his pit bulls both as pets and for fighting right to the end of his life,  after which family members continued his business.

Boudreaux fed pit bull with a shovel

According to “APBT Info,”  a social media page promoting the “American Pit Bull Terrier” pit bull line,  Boudreaux’s “game dogs — including Boudreaux Eli,  Maverick,  and Blind Billy — became champions and symbols of gameness,  leaving an indelible mark on the game breed.”

The “game” was not to be confused with dogs playing poker.  “Dogmen” gambled money.  Pit bulls gambled their body parts and their lives.

Recounted one “Lucky Lopez” of Floyd Boudreaux,  “I asked him about Bolio,  Eli,  and he told me the stories about Bullyson and how his wife saved Bullyson from dying multiple times and how he fed him with a shovel,  and used the same shovel to hit him with multiple times.  He told me about Boze,  his all-time favorite dog.

“God have mercy on us”

“I remember asking him what dog will you be remembered for and he answered by saying Maurice Carver had IronHead,  Howard Hienzl had Arizona Pete,  Earl Tudor had Dibo,  but I will be known always for multiple dogs––Eli Junior, Bullyson,  Brendy,  Boze,  and the list could go on and on.

“I’ve always said that when that man passes away,”  Lopez continued,  “an era of dogmen,  a golden era, would no longer exist.  That day has happened today.  God have mercy on us,  and on the dog game,  without Mr. Floyd Boudreaux.”

The Boudreaux pit bull lines took a hit when Laura Maloney on March 14,  2005 personally euthanized the pit bulls impounded in the raid three days earlier,  deeming them too dangerous to either rehome or keep in the old Louisiana SPCA shelter,  which was destroyed five and a half months later by Hurricane Katrina.

Taking intensive heat from pit bull advocates,  Maloney soon afterward left Louisiana,  working for a time in Australia,  then for the Humane Society of the U.S. and the American SPCA before fading out of public view.

Judge threw out the charges

Meanwhile,  15th Louisiana District Judge Kristian Earles on October 15,  2008 threw out all charges against Floyd and Guy Boudreaux,  accepting the defense argument that euthanizing the pit bulls amounted to destroying the evidence they would have needed to prove their innocence.

“What we found on the scene was a how-to on dogfighting,  and this verdict is tantamount to ignoring a mountain of evidence,”  responded Ana Zorilla,  who succeeded Maloney as chief executive officer of the Louisiana SPCA.

In addition to the dogfighting tools and paraphernalia found on the Boudreaux’s premises,  the pit bulls were found with scars––which were photographed––that suggested past dogfights,   Zorilla told media.

Selling “culls” as pets

John P. Colby was far from the only old-time “dogman” who sold pit bulls he deemed insufficiently “game” as pets.

Dogfighter and pit bull breeder Charles Werner of New Orleans,  in an April 1911 letter to the magazine Dog Fancier,  boasted of selling his “cull” dogs as pets.  Other dogfighters denounced this practice as likely to bring deaths and injuries outside the “fancy,”  leading to greater legislative and law enforcement interest in dogfighting.

While there seems to be no record of any direct connection with Werner,  four-year-old John T. Michel Jr. was killed by an uncle’s pit bull in New Orleans in September 1917.

Four years later,  in December 1921,  four-year-old Anthony Vento of Orleans Parish was killed by a pit bull kept as a pet by his uncle Alphonse LaForte.

“For three years the boy and the dog were inseparable,”  the New Orleans Times Picayune reported.  “The dog was acquired when the child was born and from babyhood and puppyhood they grew together.”

The pit bull “fights by instinct”

After that,  there appears to have been little more talk in Louisiana of pit bulls as pets for close to 80 years.

But dogfighters,  through the Ku Klux Klan,  held so much political influence in Louisiana that in April 1961 humane investigators found themselves unable to do anything more about a dogfighting convention held in the city of Ruston,   than to deplore it to the Ruston Daily Leader and United Press International.

Though no documentation seems to exist,  Floyd Boudreaux reputedly participated.

Pit bulls were then so little known outside of the states where the Ku Klux Klan protected dogfighting that the Ruston Daily Leader and United Press International felt obliged to explain to readers what they are:  “The fighting dog,  properly called the American Pit Bull,  is a heavy-chested,  round-headed,  short-eared animal,”  who “averages 44 pounds in weight and fights by instinct.”

Two dead in Tullahoma

Six hundred twenty-one miles north of Broussard,  about 24 hours before Floyd Boudreaux died reportedly peacefully in bed,  Khelani Taylor,  daughter of Cliff and Brittany Taylor,  was torn apart by at least two family pit bulls in a dilapidated house where seven dogs,  mostly pit bulls,  were reportedly found.

Khelani Taylor’s grandfather,  James Alexander Smith,  apparently suffered a fatal heart attack while attempting to come to her rescue.

Reported Elisheva Wimberly and Alicia Patton for WKRN television news,  “According to 14th Judicial District attorney general Craig Northcott,  the Coffee County Communications Center received a call at approximately 3:00 p.m. about an ‘apparent mauling by pit bulls’ that occurred in the 900 block of E. Warren Street,”  a location familiar to law enforcement for frequent calls about pit bulls at large menacing neighbors and their pets.

“A woman screaming”

“A neighbor,  Brian Kirby,  said he came home from work and saw a woman in the middle of the street screaming,”  Wimberly and Patton narrated.

“Kirby asked the woman if she needed help,  but instead of answering him,  he said she ran off toward the back of the house. Moments later,  Kirby heard sirens.”

Continued Wimberly and Patton,  “Officials reported that when law enforcement arrived at the scene, they observed the dogs attacking the infant.”

The pit bulls were shot to stop the attack,  but the victims were already dead.

Kirby mentioned to Wimberly and Patton that the pit bulls had killed his eight-year-old cat only one week earlier.

Nick Beres reports

Elaborated retired newscaster Nick Beres,  formerly with NC5 News Channel 5 in Nashville,  Tennessee,  via Facebook,  “I’ve been in touch with the family and they have shared more details.”

The three-month-old infant,  Khelani Taylor,  and James Alexander Smith,  Beres explained,  “were the only ones home at the time of the attack.  A family member found the two and called 911. Smith was found deceased holding a baseball bat.

“The grandmother and six other children were not home at the time.

Animal control did not respond

“A family member tells me they tried repeatedly to get a shelter or animal control to help and take the dogs,”  Beres said,  “but it never happened.

“I’ve learned,”  Beres added,   “the home now has been condemned because of its poor condition,  leaving [the survivors] with no clothes,  no beds,  and nowhere to go.

“Smith did not have life insurance,”  Beres mentioned,  “leaving the family with the overwhelming burden of funeral expenses on top of everything else they are trying to piece together.”

A relative,  Ely Cournoyer,  confirmed Beres’ report in a GoFundMe posted “on behalf of my fiancé’s memaw [grandmother].”

Yet new bylaw should have enabled response

Fourteen months before the Smith fatalities, on October 3,  2024,   Tullahoma News staff writer Brady Flanigan reported that,  “After an ugly story of bureaucracy and blood spilled, Tullahoma is making a change to its vicious dog ordinance.

“Back in July 2024,”  Flanigan recounted,  “Brian Mosely’s dog,  Bruiser,  had his skin peeled open like a soup can by five of his neighbor’s savage shepherds.  Bruiser held on for three miserable weeks in the vet,  while Mosely shelled out $6,000 trying to save him.  But in the end the injuries won, and Bruiser was put down.

“The only reason Bruiser wasn’t killed outright,”  Flanigan continued,  “was because of the body harness he wore,  a grim souvenir from another attack alleged by the same dogs in March 2022, when they nearly ripped out his throat.  Another neighbor didn’t get off much easier—their pet suffered a similar mauling not long after.”

Two more attacks while ordinance was written

On September 23,  2024,  the Tullahoma Board of Mayor and Aldermen updated the city animal control ordinance to allow the city animal control department “to label a dog vicious,  impound it, and hold it at the owner’s expense until its enclosure meets city standards,”  Flanigan explained.

“If standards aren’t maintained,  the animal can be slated for destruction,”  Flanigan said.

However,  Flanigan added,  “while the ordinance was being written, two more attacks occurred.  One was on September 17,  2024,  when a seven-year-old girl needed surgery after a dog tore up her foot.”

James Alan Peters

Tullahoma figured indirectly in another dog attack fatality earlier in 2025.  Born in Tullahoma  to parents Robert and Jessica Peters on July 30, 2018,   along with his twin brother Danny,   James Alan Peters,  6,  was killed in Lexington,  Oklahoma on May 4,  2025 by a German shepherd and a mastiff.

Robert and Jessica Peters were dog rescue transporters.

Ten weeks later,  Robert Alan Peters,  38,  was arrested in St. Louis,  Missouri,  after he tried to have four dogs who died in his truck cremated.

Additional dogs in the truck were found to be suffering from severe heat stress.

Robert Alan Peters was charged on July 15,  2025 with 16 counts of animal abuse,  including nine felonies.

Pleading not guilty,  Peters was held without bond.

(See Too hot transport, dog attack death, & unaccountable rescues all in one case and “Outside dogs” & perhaps others kill six-year-old in rural Oklahoma.)

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