My friends were jogging with their dogs outside of town, near one of our many provincial parks.
Three dogs went out.
Unfortunately, only two came back.
Apparently, the dogs had been running ahead of them when they heard shots. Two of the dogs came back right away, one with a chipped tooth, and a cut lip. They found the third dog, who had been shot in the body. She died on the way back to town.
They don’t know exactly what happened, but the only thing that they can think of is that the dogs may have run onto private property, and the owner took a dislike for some reason. I’m troubled by this explanation though. If I were a property owner, I could see shooting an animal on my property, provided it were threatening my livestock, or family members. I would like to think that I would respond as the situation demanded, whether it be to fire a warning shot, or fire directly at the dogs. At any rate, were I forced to do such a thing, I would make damn sure to put out the effort to find out if the dogs had owners, and would fully explain the situation. For the record the dogs had collars and tags, all up to date, indicating a strong likelihood that they were not strays. The fact that this trail is about 40 km outside of town also increase the likelihood that the owners were near by.
I lack the word to truly explain what I am feeling. I just can’t get over this. I lost a dog two years ago unexpectedly, and I still miss her, so maybe that is influencing my feelings somewhat, but ugh… my disgust with some members of humanity is so high right now. Not to mention that this comes on the heels of another dog who was shot in the muzzle and left for dead outside of town a couple of days ago. Luckily, it got medical attention, and is now living with a caring adoptive family
Now, all I want to know is, who would do this? Cam anybody answer that for me?
[Sort of hijack]Who would shoot a dog? MEEEEEEEEEE.
Gimme a gun folks, so I can shoot the damn mongrel (called Lucky btw) who lives next door and whines/barks/whinges all bloody night EVERY bloody night. I need some sleep![/sort of hijack].
Just a WAG here, but maybe the dog acted in a manner that could percieved as threatening? Maybe toward a man walking another dog? It could happen. You never really know who or what a dog could take an immediate dislike to. (I had a sweet natured collie mix once that would attack anyone wearing a uniform, but no one else).
And if you patroling your property, and all of a sudden you see 3 dogs, without owners with them, coming towards you, you might react to them before seeing the collars and tags. And really, just because a dog has a collar and tag does not mean it is a gentle, non-threatening dog.
Of course, this is all conjecture. It could have been some asshole who was out to shoot something that day. But other possibilities exist.
Basically, if three unleashed dogs came off of public property in a ‘pack’ and headed right for me on my private property in a threatening manor, I’d shoot one. I’d shoot the biggest one in the pack and I wouldn’t stop until it dropped or the clip emptied. I’d shoot it, knowing that responsible dog owners leash & control their dogs, so these must be strays that have gone wild. As wild dogs are a threat to me, my family, and my neighbors, I wouldn’t shed a tear either.
It doesn’t sound to me like the two dogs who came back were shot. Could the chipped tooth and a cut lip could come from fighting with another dog? Perhaps the three dogs ganged up on someone else’s dog? Even a gentle dog will do odd things if it is running with a pack.
What ever happened I feel bad for your friend losing her dog.
Though it is horrible to shoot a dog, it is not unreasonable if the dog is threatening a human, or livestock. In the countryside it is best to keep a dog under close control or preferably on a lead when livestock is arround if the dog is not used to livestock. And imagine if a three dogs were running towards a child showing aggression, if you could not get the child out of the way, would you not use a gun if you had one and if it seemed the only alternative to the child getting savaged.
Still I am terribly sad for the dog owner.
People shoot dogs all the time - especially in the country. Even in the UK, where animal cruelty laws are very aggressively enforced, it is legal to shoot dogs who come onto your property.
The insults “egg-sucking” and “go suck and egg” come from rural communities where dogs who got into the henhouse were shot and the source of feuding.
If a vet can verity that one of the dogs was shot, you may be able to get the local animal cruelty office to investigate. If there’s a dog shooter in the area, dog-owner neighbors will know who it is. It’s unlikely that the person who shot the dogs will be in any trouble (there’s a slim change that simply firing the gun is an offense of some kind), but it might help to have more details. Perhaps an investigate that the dog was killed in a less brutal accident.
Oh, and people also put out poison for dogs and cats. And they call animal control and make false reports about dogs on the loose, dogs knocking over trash, dogs biting, etc. (Remember what happens in the first scene of the Wizard of Oz?)
If you have a pet, keep it on a leash, and make sure your neighbors can vouch for your pet’s good behavior.
Actually, I did notice that thread. I posted in it as well. I didn’t start this thread intending for an argument for or against leashing (assuming if that is what you are referring to with the posted thread title. If not please correct me), although I must say, I knew that the subject would be brought up, and I shall address it. The dogs were unleashed, although they were not on city property, or within the confines of a no leash area, or even within city limits, so they were allowed to have them off leash. It should also be noted that this is really rural area, with very few actual houses along the length of the trail Now, is that an excuse or justification of what happened? No, it isn’t. If the dogs had been leashed, this whole problem very likely never would have happened. So, should a dog be leashed all of the time, no matter where it is? Again, I must say no, but with a caveat. When you take a dog off leash, you accept certain rights and responsibilities. One of these is that if it runs off, it may be a threat, and as such, it may be shot, or otherwise incapacitated. I accept this, and this is not the part that bothers me. What bothers me is the person who shot it left it to die.
I feel that if you think that you’re are justified to shoot a dog, then there are certain responsibilities that come with your actions. I realize that the shooting may have been the result of a threatening situation, and being a dog owner, I know that it is well within the realm of possibility. I am also a hunter, so I have no qualms about using firearms either. I do know though that if I had to put an animal down, I would make sure that it was down (even if you see it drop it may not be dead, just injured), and that it was a wild/stray, or that the owners were notified of the where about of the dog. As I said, they had tags and ID and the whole nine yards, and my friends happened upon her pretty quickly after they heard the shots. It would have been easy to let them know the situation.
As I said previously the shooter didn’t bother to check up on the dog. Perhaps it is just me, and others don’t feel this way, but the thought of just shooting at something, and not making sure if you have killed it or not, just leaving it to die, is wrong. Sure, it may be just a varmint, or a threat, but I was always taught, you do not pull the trigger unless you have a clean shot, and once you have shot, you make sure you’ve killed what you’re shooting at. Leaving an injured dog that has gone feral is an even larger threat to you and yours, than what it was before. And if you do shoot a dog, and you find that it belongs to someone and that there is contact info, you should contact the owners, and explained what happened. If nothing else, it lets them know what happened.
So, I agree that the idea of putting down a dog when threatened is a valid answer to my question. I didn’t think about it too much, as I was upset by this news somewhat.Whether or not this shooting was an unjustified shooting, we will never know. I just think that the one responsible for the shooting should have taken responsibility and defended his or her actions. All I can say is that is what I would have done had I done the shooting, I suppose that it just seems like the honourable thing to do, and that not everybody will feel that way. But I think that if you are justified enough to shoot a dog, then that justification is on your side, and you should be able to tell the dogs owners what had happened.
Of course, all this is my opinion, and I imagine that many will disagree, but such is life.
Once, I was doing yard work in my backyard. A dog came running up my sideyard right towards me. I took my shovel in a defensive posture ready to hit this animal if it approached. It turned and ran back to the street and joined its master going for a walk. However, if my 4-month old daughter were in the backyard at this time, I would have ran towards the dog swinging first, asking questions later. Whether or not the dog is “friendly”, up-to-date with shots, etc., if it approaches me without being under its owner’s control (and by control I mean leashed), it is fair game.
Yeah, I muggled up my OP. I was a bit more vauge in it than I should have been. I would have to agree with you Fin_man, in that case it would be totally justified. So, my bad.
I promise I won’t be an idiot next time…
Allow me to clairify the OP. I was upset that the dog was shot, but I realize that there are situations where such actions are justified, and this very well may have been one of them. I think what bothered me so much was that the dog that was shot was just left to die. I feel you have a right to shoot a troublesome dog, but please, do it right and don’t let it suffer.
I think it is sad that there are so many ill-trained or dangerous dogs that people are paranoid and assume that an unleashed dog may come up and attack you and/or your children.
Where I grew up in a town of 15,000 - rural NZ and where my parents still live, often dogs out on walks are not leashed (although illegal). Sometimes they come up to say hello! The thought of a dog coming up to attack me has rarely entered my head, let alone shooting one - most people don’t own rifles and hand guns are illegal anyway.
Also, my parents elderly terrier often sneaks out when my elderly parents aren’t looking and tootles off to sniff out his favourite places. What kind of a community would think about shooting this dog?
However, I live in a city of over 1,000, 000 people and I live in a fairly low socioeconomic area. There are few dogs, but the ones that live here are not trained at all and therefore unpredictable.
A bit like the parenting here as well!!
Y’all are being way too generous to dog shooters, I think.
Sure, there are some circumstances under which it’s reasonable to shoot a dog. But even if we view dogs strictly as property, they’ve got at least the same protection that other private property has.
And if, for example, my child throws a valuable book out my car window and it lands in your yard, you don’t have a right to burn the book just because it’s in your property.
If a dog is presenting a clear and present danger, of course, that’s another matter. But many jurisdictions have laws that define what constitutes circumstances under which it is legal to “destroy” someone else’s “property” (i.e., kill someone else’s pet). You don’t have carte blanche to shoot someone’s dog because you vaguely think that sometimes dogs off-leash are dangerous.
I’d encourage your friend to call animal control and report this death, see if they’ll investigate. Sure, the dog may have been shot legally – but it could’ve been some cretin with a pistol out in the wood showing off to their cretin friends. That’s what felony animal cruelty is all about.
Yes, of course you should finish the job, but if you were busy dealing with an injury to yourself/your child/your dog, or just dealing with a terrified child… you did say the owners found the dog pretty quickly. If the dog ran off quickly when shot, maybe the shooter intended to follow the dog but just hadn’t found him before the owners did.
Grasping at straws here, but its possible.
On a related subject:
If someone knew ahead of time that they were being troubled by stray dogs that they wanted to drive away without killing, there are plenty of less-lethal* solutions. I’m not sure which would be best. Remember that pellet guns vary very widely in both accuracy and power. Some have more muzzle velocity than a .22LR! With a shotgun or .22 your first shot or two could be less-lethal, and the rest normal ammo, if necessary.
birdshot from a shotgun
rock salt/rubber shot/other specialty loads from a shotgun
.22 shotshells (aka rat shot or snake shot)
.22 primer-onlys
possibly .22 shorts
a pellet gun
*It really pisses me off when someone refers to less-lethal weapons like rubber bullets as non-lethal. Tell that to the Irish and the Palestinians.
I have mixed feelings here. I love my dogs. The most affectionate and sweetest dog I’ve ever owned is my Catahoula Leopard Hound. She is unbelievably smart, affectionate and eager to please, but I’ve also seen another side of her. She is also the most viscious, relentless, and protective animal I’ve ever seen either. Having seen what she is capable of I’m extremely leary of unleashed dogs these days. I could certainly understand someone reacting to that situation as Kalishnikov stated, and I wouldn’t blame them a bit. My dog is always leashed, I allow no strangers to pet her or any small animals or children around her, at any time. Precautions I take because of her, that I wouldn’t have in the past.
Your list leaves off one specific less-lethal solution:
Call Animal Control.
What you recommend comes close to vigilantism and would, in some jurisdictions, risk animal cruelty charges.
While there are some circumstances under which these options would be legal, if you know that there are dangerous stray animals, talking to the appropriate authorities should be your first resort.
