A pet dog has been shot dead in a suburban backyard after it escaped its Maida Vale home and wandered into a neighbouring property's chicken pen.
Blaze was a five-year-old husky, owned by couple Marnie Atherton and Ryan Charlie, who treated their pet "like a baby".
![Marnie and Ryan with their pet husky, Blaze.](/web/20161024035421im_/http://www.watoday.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/9/3/l/6/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs92ql.png/1477274507503.jpg)
Ms Atherton said he escaped from their backyard on Friday morning through a gate her partner had just installed.
"Normally in the morning, he'd run out to get his treat and he didn't come so I went looking for him and saw the gate was open and I quickly went and got my partner," she said.
"We were driving around the streets looking for him, this was at 6.30am in the morning... I was crying, I said to Ryan, 'what if someone's stolen him, what if he's been hit by a car', I never thought he would have been shot.
"We treated him so well, he wasn't just a dog to us, he was our baby."
After searching the streets for three hours, Ms Atherton noticed a ranger's vehicle outside a property 200 metres from her house.
"I jumped out and ran over to them and asked, 'have you seen a husky?', and then they just looked at me and I saw his little body in the back of their car and he told me he'd been shot," a distraught Ms Atherton said.
The owner of the chicken pen claimed Blaze was attacking his chickens when he shot him.
The Shire of Kalamunda is investigating the incident but Ms Atherton has questioned why a person would fire a gun in a suburban area.
"[The man said] he thought Blaze was a fox, he doesn't look anything like a fox," she said.
"He didn't even try to yell at Blaze, or squirt him with a hose, or try get him off in any other way, he just shot him.
"We're not on big properties, we're in the middle of suburbia, the man, yes he has a bigger property, but it's surrounded by suburban housing and directly behind where he shot is his neighbour's house."
According to the Dog Act, a person who owns any animal or bird, may lawfully shoot or otherwise destroy a dog which he finds attacking that animal or bird if there is no other way of stopping the attack.
It is understood the man's backyard where the chicken pen was situated was not fenced off.
0 comments
New User? Sign up