Chicken owner charged after shooting dog.

[MysticScorpio82]

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I believe we have addressed this. Chickens can be scared to death, or frightened into breaking their necks by hitting the sides of the cages. I have seen very few chicken pens a dog could not get into, given the chance. Unless they have concrete floors, or wire buried several feet down and are heavy gauge welded steel wire (not the 2 x 4 fence wire) and have a top of the same wire, a dog can get in. I have had dogs go through that 2 x 4 fence wire. I have OWNED dogs that eat chainlink for breakfast. My first chainlink kennel held my first working line German shepherd for all of 30 minutes.

It is not as easy as some think to keep dogs OUT. Best situation is for owners to keep their dogs home. Since this will never happen, we sometimes need to be able to protect our animals on our own property.

I, too, support "the shooter" as I am giving him the benefit of the doubt that this was his only option to save his flock.

Well said and thank you for the reminder that even chickens that are ENCLOSED can be killed by a dog or any other predator.

 

[horsejody]

Keni*Sue :

i have chickens and love them dearly but it was insane that he shot the dog... if you look at his coop the dog couldn't have gotten to the chickens. i do not support him in ANY way and i agree that the guy should of had a leash on the dog. Shooting the dog should of never crossed his mind. i hope he gets convicted.

Have you ever had one of your chickens break their neck because they panicked and flew into the side of their run while a dog terrorizing them?​

 

[speckledhen]

Why must I post the rules of this section again?

*Although some ways are not considered ideal to some, it serves the purpose of removing the offending predator. If you have an idea or a helpful comment, please do reply. If it is a sarcastic comment about the disposal or capture of a predator, please keep your thoughts to yourself. We are not here to judge one another on methods or ways and means.

*It is the responsibility of the person with the predator to determine the legalities of what they do and that person will take ultimate responsibility. BYC does not condone illegal acts.

This is getting really old here. If you cannot abide by the above rules, stay out of Predators and Pests, period. Stay on track with this discussion.

One comment-- dogs in the act of stalking, terrorizing or otherwise trying to get at chickens often are not "shoo-able". If they don't "shoo", what then? Grab a strange dog's collar and risk being bitten? Hardly.
This will play out in the media, I'm sure and we'll see what happens. We don't have all the details here because the story is very one-sided, obviously written to garner sympathy for the dog's owner. That is what sells in the media and what gets folks up in arms over this stuff, tugging on the heartstrings.​

 

[horsejody]

Quote:

*It is the responsibility of the person with the predator to determine the legalities of what they do and that person will take ultimate responsibility. BYC does not condone illegal acts.

This is getting really old here. If you cannot abide by the above rules, stay out of Predators and Pests, period. Stay on track with this discussion.

One comment-- dogs in the act of stalking, terrorizing or otherwise trying to get at chickens often are not "shoo-able". If they don't "shoo", what then? Grab a strange dog's collar and risk being bitten? Hardly.
This will play out in the media, I'm sure and we'll see what happens. We don't have all the details here because the story is very one-sided, obviously written to garner sympathy for the dog's owner. That is what sells in the media and what gets folks up in arms over this stuff, tugging on the heartstrings.​

Well said. Thank you.

 

[crait]

It doesn't seem, from what I've read, that it would have been easy for the dog to get through the fence. Yeah, dogs can do it, but is the guy just going to sit back and watch him do it? It's not like the dog can get through in seconds.
Grab a stick and swing at it, right?
I mean, using that kind of gun to deter the dog instead of getting a rocket launcher or a machine gun was good. But the dog wasn't killing the chickens. Wasn't biting the guy. Wasn't biting through the cage and using heat vision to melt a hole through it.
I just don't see how it was right. The dog was on the guy's property but other than that, I don't see any problem with him. Just because some dogs kill chickens doesn't mean they all do. My dog gets attacked by chickens.

 

[G Wiz Ranch]

Quote:
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You know something we don't?

 

[EweSheep]

I agree with SpeckledHen's comments.

I had lost almost my entire flock of Faverolle bantams and Silkies to a Chow chow and a pit bull dogs that was roaming in our neighborhood. It was alot of money being invested and seeing the killing of my chickens was not a pretty sight. I yelled at them to go away and get out of the yard. Did they get out, nope, they were out for blood of my chickens and they did tore into the hardware wire of my chicken door, staples and all! I chased the chow chow and he turned on me by growling. I backed off and yelled for my hubby. He tore out of the house and foot chased him all the way down to the owners house and got the dogs into their dog houses while he caught his breath. He ran for 3/4 of a mile and it is no easy feat to get after those dogs who they were very smart in avoiding my hubby, ducking and hiding in alleys, pathways, or any object that came his way.

When my hubby got his breath back, the owner came out from his back door and asked him what he was doing here with his dogs? Hubby replied "YOUR dogs killed my wife's chickens!" Owner said oh no, not my dogs, they could not have killed any chickens.

Then hubby said we will report your dogs roaming at large and killing expensive show quality chickens. Well the owner flubbered and flustered. Hubby said, next time, your dogs will be dead next time they are out roaming.

We did call the animal control and the officer said we can take him to court but the judge would most likely award us only five dollars per hen. At least the dog owner was served his warning and we never saw the dogs or him again. Fast forward a few weeks later, both the chow chow and pit bull dogs were put down for attacking a four year old child! The parents of that child was hell bent in killing the dogs and the owner could not find any words to make the child "new" again.

So the feelings of Mr Harris is justified since I have been in that path and no dogs will ever get into my chickens again without tasting hubby's .22 bullet coming out of the over-under rifle. I understand it was a lab but the owners should keep responsibility of his dog's whereabouts and pay the damages his dog did, intentially or unintentionally. It is easy for chickens to thrash themselves against the fence, I have witnessed many times by dogs barreling toward the fence and the chickens were in pure fright. Had to put down some with broken legs and broken necks or severly maimed. So I side with Mr Harris because I think he did the right thing by scaring the dog off with a BB but the lab didnt heed to his warning, got the bullet.

 

[rizq]

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Me too.

And going after a strange dog with a stick is another good way to get bitten.

 

[vicki2x2]

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How do you know he wasn't trying to bite the guy? How do you know he wasn't trying to chew through the fence or dig under it? Mr. Harris hasn't told his side of the story because he was advised by his lawyer not to at this time. The dog could have very well been doing those things, we don't know yet. I think it is safe to assume he yelled at it and it didn't leave, he then shot a pellet gun at it and it didn't leave, according to it's owner, and he went to get a bigger gun. He wasn't trying to kill the dog or he would have started with a bigger gun, he was trying to get it to leave. He just happened to hit it in the heart, which was probably just bad luck, when hitting a moving target that is running and jumping around.

 

[IggiMom]

Keni*Sue :

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IM WITH YOU ALL THE WAY!!!

Oh gosh. Shooed the dog away. Have you ever seen a dog in full prey drive? They do not 'shoo' believe me. They go completely insane.

Keni Sue, you are a nice person, but when your beloved chickens get attacked and killed (or frightened to death) by a marauding dog, you may well change your mind. Seriously.

It really is devastating. Horrible.

The last time it happened to me, not only did I lose a number of chickens, I was injured myself in an effort to, well, shoo them away.

I seem to be involved in a couple of upsetting threads on this forum today, where I usually go to relax. I had better go feed my chickens.

Catherine​