Dog Shooting was Legal

It happened in Pennsylvania last week and it could happen here.

Two pet Burmese Mountain Dogs were shot to death on Feb. 12 after they escaped a fenced-in yard in Chester County, Pennsylvania and it was perfectly legal.

According to mainlinemedianews.com, owner Mary Bock said she hopes her pets' deaths may lead to a change in the law and said the neighbor, Gabriel Pilotti, told police he killed the dogs because they entered an enclosure housing his sheep and he expressed absolutely no remorse over the killings.

“It seemed like he almost enjoyed it a little bit,” Mary Bock said. “He was so cold and callous, he feels like he did nothing wrong. There were a million things he could have done differently, and he chose to pick up that gun and kill them.”

The dogs were shot just minutes after escaping through a damaged fence on the Bock property and were attempting to "herd" the neighbor's sheep.

The shooting was legal due to a century-old Pa. state law allowing someone to kill animals that pursue their own livestock or pets.

In our own state of New Jersey the law reads like this: A person may humanely destroy a dog in self defense, or which is found chasing, worrying, wounding or destroying any sheep, lamb, poultry or domestic animal.

It seems pretty clear to me that this law doesn't protect dogs that are innocently following their herding instincts against someone with no compassion for animals or consideration for his neighbors.

That neighbor wasn't protecting his sheep against being killed by the dogs by his own admission and he could have taken a different, non-deadly route, but chose not to.

Do you think this law should be changed to protect pets?