Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Rowley dog gets a reprieve

I don't think I've yet posted on the dog-killing-goat issue but in today's DN it is reported the dog got a reprieve from the former death sentence.

This one was a toughie and I feel for the Rowley selectmen who had to pass judgment. I personally thought right from the start that the dog was in "protect" mode, not "kill" mode, when found in the pen with the goats.

A family dog of ours years ago killed one of our chickens right in front of us ... or just me, I don't remember. There was a lot of blood and most of it was on the dog. Knowing that a dog will shake the other animal once it has its teeth in it, the lack of blood on the dog more or less convinced me that he was not the culprit.


Plus I've seen how bold the coyotes out here can be. The Newburyport animal control officer told me that they will come out in the daytime when there's a storm brewing that will disrupt their normal nighttime feeding cycle. I don't know if there was a storm coming on the day this all happened, but I feel there was reasonable doubt.


We kept our dog, a standard poodle, by the way, even though I don't think she ever got over the blood lust for the chickens once she had killed one. She was a sweetie in every other respect.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Rowley selectmen should be ashamed of themselves. Mr. Cook said he based his decision to have the dog put down on the fact that the owner of the goat had lived in town for 40 years. Then he changes his mind after the dog owner ( a new resident) forks out thousands of dollars to protect his rights, and his dog. The selectmen were only protecting themselves when they reversed their decision. Had the dog owner followd through without the help of an attorney, the dog would have been dead by now. This is Rowley's wake up call.