MO woman faces charges over dogs

[StealthMouse]

It is a common misconception that there are no leash laws in the country. Some local areas may not have them, but the state does most of the time. It's a rare place where there truly is no leash law at all. Most say that a dog must be under the control of its owner at all times when off the owner's property and in addition, that dogs harassing or killing livestock or poultry may be shot by the owner of the livestock.

Dog owners would not be satisfied if your chicken killed their dog and you offered them $5 for the dog. A hen may have cost $3-10 as a day-old chick, then been fed for 6-9 months until she began laying, then you lose her production--and if you are selling hatching and/or eating eggs, you lose that $$ as well. And if she's a pet who knows her name that you've had for 3-5 years? What then? Dog owners don't care. And why should anyone care about her little yappy dog who wasn't where it should have been and killed someone else's pet while she was breaking the law? She needs to be held accountable.

 

[SouthernChicka8]

totally agree.

 

[War Chicken]

There are often state or county leash laws as well as laws general prohibiting domesticated animals from running loose. Finally, there are rules of common law negligence that also apply.

Offering money for the chickens would only settle the civil aspect, if the chicken owner accepted. The dog owner would still face criminal charges.

 

[JulieNKC]

The thing that upsets me is that the dumb lady thinks it's asinine for her to be facing charges and that she laughed when the neighbor called to tell her what happened. Hope she never moves anywhere near me, what a disrespectful rude uncaring lady. I wonder if she'd be laughing if her anklebiters bit someones kid or got squished by a car while out running around?

 

[judyc]

Too bad she didn't build the pen for her dogs BEFORE they killed the neighbor's hen.

I had a Min Pin come over while I was gone several years ago. It chased my bantams around the yard, getting some tail feathers, then went INTO my barn and found the raccoon bait. I found it when I came home, stretched out along the drive.

The neighbors came looking for it and I gave them the body. The woman was crying, telling me that she NEVER let the dog out. Well, that was obviously not true, but I didn't make any snarky remarks. I just told them that I kept raccoon bait in my barn and the dog found it.

People only care about their animals--not yours. Once I finally got that through my head, I decided to emulate them. Instead of feeling sorry for the dog,( only following his instincts and with an irresponsible owner) I treat them just like any other predator. Once a dog leaves his owner's property, he becomes a predator of my stock. Yes, once that dog disappears, they'll get another, but I keep bait out for the raccoons anyway, so it's not such a big deal. If you have a good population of buzzards in your area, you don't even have to bury them.

Now that I have Anatolians, I don't even have to put bait out. Once I move the dogs and sheep to the farm, the bait comes out.

 

[mulewagon]

This is one case where a tiny bit of common courtesy would have prevented a world of trouble. If she had only said, "Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry! How much do I owe you? I'll see that it never happens again", I bet things would never have escalated to screaming and charges.

 

[Mattemma]

I hope she is fined a large amount.As for the dogs...sss

 

[joan1708]

I think she should be fined maybe $50.00 at most, if this is a repeat offense. She has three children to raise for Pete's sake. I think it would be cruel to put her in jail for even an hour over something like this. The chicken owner has JUST AS MUCH responsibility in this for not protecting the chicken. 2 little chihuahuas can not jump fences or chew through hardware cloth.

 

[RedDrgn]

The way the article is presented is over the top, I was really stunned by some of the "it's only a chicken" lines in the comments; as though that somehow made it okay for the dogs to have trespassed and killed it.

I guess that's why I am rather fond of our local ordinance regarding livestock. It spells out in oh-so-lawful terms that any animal caught killing or harassing livestock may be killed on the spot. We even called our sheriff's office to make sure we understood what that meant, exactly, and it does include a dog running around outside of our run and scaring the chickens (which happens often, because we have several irresponsible pet owners in our area). Granted, our run is **** secure and it'd take a big, persistent, lucky dog to get anywhere near a chicken, so unless a dog turned on me when I went out to get rid of it, I'd never kill it. But it has served us well to note this ordinance to a repeat offender's owner after the second time we caught it stirring up our flock.

 

[ChickChickChicky]

I think she should be fined maybe $50.00 at most, if this is a repeat offense. She has three children to raise for Pete's sake. I think it would be cruel to put her in jail for even an hour over something like this. The chicken owner has JUST AS MUCH responsibility in this for not protecting the chicken. 2 little chihuahuas can not jump fences or chew through hardware cloth.

You must not have read the article. The dogs were INSIDE of the chicken's pen and there were feathers everywhere, so the dogs did more than just bark & chase (plus this was not the first instance of the dogs being PITA's to neighbors). Ok, if some drunk driver comes along and wipes out your family, are you ok with turning the other cheek because the drunk driver has kids? The ability to procreate doesn't give anyone a pass in my book. This gal probably gives the same care and attention to her kids that she does to her dogs, for pete's sake. "Go and out play, junior, and be back in 10 hours". As a taxpayer I wouldn't mind footing her food and board for a day or two to send her a message, and I think the fine she gets (which can help offset the cost of housing her up for a day or two) should HURT. She is a clueless, uncaring ***** who STILL YET can't understand what all the fuss is about.