The AP reports an irresponsible pet owner. Actually, they don’t. They do a story on Killer Dogs because that sells news:

Authorities began weighing charges Monday against the owners of three dogs that killed a woman over the weekend in a gruesome rampage that left two other people wounded.

Neighbors said the dogs had been a roaming menace for months in the rolling ranchland near Kiowa, southeast of Denver. A local fire official said residents had even adopted informal warning system when the pit bulls were loose.

Elbert County Undersheriff Jim Underwood said the animals, which were gunned down by a teenager and sheriff’s deputies, had been involved in previous attacks, but declined to elaborate.

The owners, one of whom was identified as Jacqueline Mccuen, could face charges ranging from a misdemeanor to negligent homicide, a felony, said Mike Knight, spokesman for the district attorney.

Mccuen already faces a misdemeanor charge filed after the dogs threatened another area resident, Knight said. A telephone number listed for Mccuen has been disconnected and she could not be reached for comment.

She was cited for alleged animal violations in 2002 when she lived in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Denver television stations reported. The citations included having unlicensed dogs, having too many dogs and letting dogs run loose.

The dogs were roaming for months? And no one called animal control?

The latest attacks began about dawn Sunday when the dogs killed 40-year-old Jennifer Brooke after she went to her horse barn. Ranch partner Bjorn Osmunsen, 24, was wounded by the animals after he went looking for her.

Neighbor Lynn Baker was the next victim. The dogs attacked as he stepped out of his home, jumping on him and going for his throat.

Baker thought he was going to die.

“They were monsters. And they don’t run away. They come at you. Even when you are shooting at them,” he said in a telephone interview.

His screams for help brought son Cody outside with a shotgun. The teenager fired bird shot at the animals, wounding two and distracting the other dog enough so his father could get inside his pickup truck.

“He knocked two of them down. He’s the hero,” Baker said.

But guns don’t save lives.

“The people in the area had their own sort of emergency phone network to warn each other if the dogs were loose before they would go out,” Goetz said. They dubbed the system the “frequent flyers rescue rig.”

Did the system include calling animal control?

Mind you, the owner of these dogs should not have allowed them to run lose. And, I’d bet $100 the dogs were never properly socialized. She should go to jail. However, as a neighbor, if there are dogs running through my neighborhood, I will contact the owner (if I know who they are) or animal control (if I don’t know the owners). Use common sense with your dogs and with other peoples’. You can’t rely on other people to use common sense.

Remember my reminder!

Posted in uncategorized on December 2nd, 2003 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |