An animal control officer shot and killed a pet dog in a Massachusetts town after mistaking it for a coyote in an incident that has the animal's owner fuming, but that local police are describing as a sad mix-up.
The shooting happened after police received a call of a report of a coyote in a residential backyard, said Timothy Labrie, chief of police in Northbridge, Massachusetts.
The animal control officer went into the woods to look for the coyote and found what they thought was the animal in a threatening position and shot it, he said.
The officer then further examined the animal and saw that it had a flea collar and was a pet dog and not a coyote, Labrie said. Authorities then located the dog's owner, he said.
The dog's owner, Kirk Rumford of Northbridge, said the dog was a husky named Odin that was less than a year old. Rumford said he felt non-lethal methods could have been used, and that his dog doesn't resemble a coyote.
“My dog would have been the most gorgeous coyote ever, on steroids,” Rumford said. “It's huge compared to that. Look at pictures of what a coyote looks like in Massachusetts and my dog. My dog was beautiful. He looked like a wolf if anything, and there are no wolves in Massachusetts.”
Rumford said he has received an outpouring of support from the community, and he hopes his story will help prevent further encounters between dogs and authorities. He described Odin as “a knucklehead” and a “loveable klutz” who had a loving disposition and loved to play with other dogs.
Labrie said it was reasonable for the animal control officer to mistake the dog for a coyote, and the officer will not be disciplined. Dog owners can prevent these kind of mix-ups by keeping their dogs secure, Labrie said.
“We do have leash laws. At the end of the day if you can keep your fenced-in areas secure, keep an eye on your dog, do whatever methods that you can use to keep your dog in your yard,” Labrie said. “And also if your dog tends to wander in the woods, I would definitely have identifying markers on them.”
The shooting happened as communities around Massachusetts and elsewhere in the country have seen an uptick in interactions between people and coyotes.
One town, Nahant, moved to become the first in the state to contract with the federal government to kill coyotes after residents said the animals killed pets and posed a dangerous nuisance.
Some scientists have said coyotes in the Eastern states have begun displaying increasingly wolf-like traits as they have carved out a position near the top of the food chain. They are also hard to control.
