WINCHESTER — If you live around here, chances are you've seen the pack of German Shepherds that rides around in the back of Michael Sean Smith's pickup truck.
Dogs riding in trucks is a pretty common sight in Virginia. What makes people take notice of these canines is what happens when Smith parks his Ford F350 at a store and goes inside. That's when passersby whip out their cellphones to take pictures and record videos of multiple shepherds waiting patiently for their owner to return, the dogs usually standing atop the truck, their eyes trained toward the door.
If you haven't seen his dogs in person, maybe you've seen them on TikTok.
Smith doesn't know much about TikTok, but people send him videos of his dogs featured on the popular social media app.
“They're like celebrities,” said Smith, a Frederick County resident who takes a few of his dogs almost everywhere he goes — he has eight German Shepherds and a husky. “I said I need to get me a cape because people call me the dog man or the German Shepherd guy.”
But five of his dogs — Remington, Ranger, Joey, Ahote and Waya — are in some real trouble and could be removed to a state that doesn't border Virginia, or worse. Smith has even started a GoFundMe to help with legal expenses.
In August, Judge Mary Costello Daniel ruled in Frederick County General District Court that the dogs had committed acts of “depredation” in an alleged incident that occurred in Smith's rural neighborhood, with Smith being found guilty of a civil violation of a Virginia law intended to protect livestock from dogs.
State law defines depredation as dogs killing, injuring or chasing livestock or poultry, and the consequences for dogs found guilty of doing so are serious.
The five dogs allegedly chased cattle around 6 a.m on June 22 on a neighbor's property in the 100 block of Lone Willow Lane in the county.
None of the cows was killed. One was alleged to have been injured, but Costello Daniel ruled that “individual culpability of each dog … cannot be determined with reasonable certainty.”
The five dogs were ordered to be removed to a state that “does not border on the Commonwealth of Virginia,” according to Costello Daniel's ruling.
The offense is also punishable by euthanasia, based on state code §3.2-6553.
Smith is appealing the verdict in an attempt to get his dogs back and has a jury trial set for March 1 in Frederick County Circuit Court. Because he's reopened the case with an appeal, he's worried that euthanasia is again a possibility. In the meantime, the dogs are being held at the county's Esther Boyd Animal Shelter, where they've been since late June. Smith visits them when he can.
“I've got to be strong for my dogs because I love them, and I know some people don't understand that passion,” Smith said. “They're literally like my kids. They're my reason for getting up every morning.”
His attorney, William A. “Beau” Bassler, said the appeal is “really about determining a legal status of the dogs and it can lead to euthanasia of the dogs, death of the dogs. So it's kind of like a death penalty case for the dogs.”
Smith faces some dog at-large charges related to the June 22 incident, which he is also appealing, though it's the dog depredation determination that worries him because of the associated consequences.
In a recent phone interview, he described his dogs as loyal, non-aggressive and well-trained.
“I will tell you on a stack of Bibles, my dogs were nowhere near their cows,” Smith said.
He maintains that while the five German Shepherds were briefly on the loose that morning, they are innocent.
He calls the situation a “witch hunt” and says he's had issues with some of his neighbors.
According to Smith, one neighbor is an appointed county official who he claims is out to get him. “He thinks he's John Dutton from ‘Yellowstone,'” he said, referring to the Montana rancher played by Kevin Costner on the popular television show.
The morning of the incident
Court documents filed in the case state that Smith's neighbors told a sheriff's deputy that they awoke to dogs “chasing the cows” around 6 a.m. on June 22. One neighbor reported that she ran outside when she heard the cows “bellowing like they were being killed.”
Smith disputes this characterization of events.
He said he let out his dogs into a fenced in area at 6 a.m., as he routinely does. His “heart sank” a few minutes later when he saw that the gate was open. He was sure it had been shut.
Once he noticed that the dogs were gone, he said he drove to his neighbor's property and saw the five young German Shepherds “playing with each other,” but they weren't “concerned with the cows.” Smith has cows himself and contends that his dogs are good around bovines.
“There was one cow that was laying down. It was just laying there. My dogs could have been all over that cow if they had wanted to, but the closest dog I had to that cow was 50 yards,” said Smith.
According to Costello Daniel's ruling, the “findings of fact” state that the dogs were “at large” and not under the control of Smith and that Smith's neighbors testified that they saw the dogs chasing the cattle, including at least one cow, referred to as “Cow #28” in documents.
“The cattle entered the feed lot ahead of the dogs,” the document states. “Law enforcement was called. Mr. Smith appeared in his truck, called the dogs, and four of them left the … (neighbor's) farm with Mr. Smith at that time. Mr. Smith did not see any dog chasing any livestock. No one saw any canine make physical contact with any bovine. A few moments later, the fifth dog, ‘Ranger,' remained on the … (neighbor's) farm standing in the gateway, therefore blocking the only means of egress for the cattle from the feed lot. Cow #28 presented later in the afternoon with injuries consistent with a canid (canine) attack.”
“I was over there literally within five to seven minutes from the time they went out the front door. They didn't have time to do that,” Smith said. “And I went over there, they weren't even near the cows. That's bull crap.”
He said his neighbors have no photographic or video evidence that the dogs were chasing the cows.
“If you're trying to convict my dogs of something this serious, of this magnitude … where they could be euthanized, why would you not take pictures of my dogs at least near the cows? I don't know how the judge didn't see that,” Smith said.
Smith's German Shepherd crew
Smith says many people in the community have taken a liking to his dogs. Outside stores and farm markets, they watch the dogs and take photographs. The brave ones will even pet them.
Once he said he came out of a farm market to find six children in his truck bed playing with the dogs.
“The other day when I came out of Walmart, I said, ‘Man, you don't see this everyday,'” Smith said about seeing his faithful companions standing on the hood of his truck, awaiting his return.
He explained why he trains his dogs to travel with him in this manner.
“As soon as they're eight weeks, I put them back there because it's good learning. I never had a dog I had to worry about jumping out of the truck,” he said. “They're young enough to not be able to fall over the side, but they're old enough to learn to stay and ride and they get their balance.”
The GoFundMe he started for his dogs' legal defense has raised more than $8,000 in just over two weeks.
