FREDERICKTOWN — The year-end holidays should be a time of joy. But for one woman on Lower Fredericktown-Amity Road, the Saturday after Christmas became a day of grief when two of her three dogs were shot to death. A third dog, a puppy, is still missing.
“Those dogs were family to us,” said Brandi Cochran of her mother’s dogs “My mother was devastated. They were her life.”
The story began Saturday when Brandi’s mother came home in the evening. According to Cochran, her mother usually lets one dog out at a time in the evening. When she does that, the dogs usually don’t wander. But Saturday, the two large dogs, a Great Dane and a Labradoodle, ran out the door with the puppy in tow. That was about 5 p.m. Saturday.
“[My mother’s] not really big enough to stop two big dogs like that,” Cochran explained.
The dogs were last seen in the yard about 5:30. At about 6, the dogs were not in the yard and did not come back when called. About 9:30 p.m., Cochran’s boyfriend, Rick LaCoy, went to look for the dogs. Cochran said she kept looking until midnight.
LaCoy resumed looking Sunday and found the two older dogs shot to death; the bodies were found on a neighbor’s property. According to Cochran, the neighbor did not mind the dogs running on his property.
“The one dog was shot twice and the other dog was nearly shot in half,” LaCoy said. “It’s muzzleloader season and you can’t load one that fast [to shoot the dog twice]. So I believe [the shooters] were using shotguns. So I believe there was somebody up there illegally hunting. They weren’t ferocious dogs or anything like that. These people had to have been 20 foot away when they shot them. It looked like a homicide scene. It was horrible.”
Cochran called the Knox County Sheriff’s Office and was told to call the animal shelter; she spoke to animal control officer John Groseclose.
“They actually told me the game warden tells hunters if they see dogs running deer, to shoot them,” Cochran said. “That’s what they said.”
Groseclose said some game wardens in other counties tell hunters that, and that he didn’t agree with that.
“When that happens, people should go to the animal shelter,” Groseclose said. “It depends on the situation, [if it’s legal to shoot a dog]. If the dogs are in livestock or being aggressive toward you, you can shoot the dog. As far as trespassing, [the dogs] cannot be shot. In the same sense, it is the dog owners’ responsibility to keep their dogs confined to their property, according to the Ohio Revised Code. But I don’t think a good game warden would tell hunters to shoot dogs in that situation.”
Wildlife officer Mike Miller said he does not tell hunters they can shoot dogs in that situation.
“It is illegal to shoot dogs for the sake of shooting dogs,” Miller said. “I’ve never told anybody that. This falls under the dog warden’s office or the sheriff’s office. We would investigate it if it was negligent hunting, if someone was dumb enough to say they thought it was a deer. Other than that, it could fall under cruelty to animals.
“It could be investigated by the sheriff’s office or the dog warden’s office,” he contnued. “It’s also vandalism. Livestock, pets, dogs, cats are technically property in Ohio. But in Ohio you cannot shoot dogs unless they are threatening you.”
The puppy, which is a 6-month old, white-and-black shepherd mix, is still missing. Anyone who has seen the puppy or who has information is encouraged to call 507-0298 or 507-8608.
