PITTSFORD, Vt. (AP) – Two Siberian huskies avoided a death sentence, but were exiled from town for life.

Kodi and Kii, male and female 1-year-old dogs owned by resident Cheryl Gecha, were due to be killed after the Select Board voted to destroy them last month.

The town seized the animals Sept. 3 after neighbor Debra Hathaway told town officials that the dogs attacked and killed two sheep and a goat in her barn.

Hathaway said the family found the dogs gnawing on the corpses of her livestock when they came home on the evening of Aug. 31.

“My daughter went in first and found the dogs eating the remains,” Hathaway said.

Friday. “I didn’t think I could control them, so I called 911. It was very traumatic.”

A town constable responded and called two selectmen to view the scene. One was Selectman Allen Hitchcock.

“They were seen in there by the child, her mother and the grandfather, so there’s no doubt that these were the dogs,” he said. “The constable also saw blood on the muzzle and chest of the male dog.”

Hitchcock said other neighbors also complained about the dogs at the public hearing. He said Hathaway told town officials that she had also lost 20 chickens to the dogs in the past.

But Gecha said the canines were wrongfully accused.

“The Select Board said in their minutes that the dogs were ferocious and a threat to people,” she said. “But at the public hearing (in September) many of the people that board horses here said the dogs were fine. I wouldn’t have the dogs if they were a threat to people.”

State law gives town select boards the authority to destroy dogs that represent a potential danger to livestock, Hitchcock said.

“It was clear that those animals participated and were a potential danger,” Hitchcock said.

After voting to destroy the dogs on Sept. 9, the board postponed the execution until Sept. 20 to give Gecha time to file an appeal, Hitchcock said.

An appeal for an injunction was filed swiftly. Then Gecha’s lawyer, James Levins, and town attorney Gary Kupferer negotiated a settlement out of court.

The agreement spared the dogs on the condition that they leave town and be placed in separate homes. One returned to the Clarendon home of the breeder who sold Gecha the dogs, and the other was sent to live with a West Rutland family that includes four children between the ages of 3 and 10, she said.

AP-ES-10-13-03 0752EDT

Copy the Story Link