Capital punishment for Dogs

Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor, wrote about shooting her dog in a gravel pit. 

She wanted to look tough.

In 1982 I voted to condemn a dog to be euthanized because it chased some sheep.

I didn't feel tough. I felt bad about it.

Back in the prior century Oregon laws were written in favor of farmers and ranchers, not pet owners. If a dog chased and bit a person, there were incremental steps of fines imposed on dog owners -- not the dog. But if a dog chased livestock, the dog faced the death penalty. 

That was the law when I was a county commissioner in the early 1980s, and that stayed the law through the end of the century. There was no wiggle room, no second chances. 

 
In 1982, I was chair of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners. A county Animal Control Officer had witnessed a mixed breed dog, the pet of a young man, frightening sheep by chasing them around a pasture. No sheep were injured. The exuberant dog was having fun.The owner of the sheep had called the Animal Control Department for help capturing the dog. 

Under Oregon law, county board of commissioners must hold a hearing to evaluate whether the dog in fact had chased livestock. If so, the dog must be "put down," as the Animal Control Officer put it. The county's legal counsel advised us that the county would face open-ended liability risks if we failed to carry out the sentence. If the dog subsequently chased or killed livestock, or worse, bit and injured and scarred a child, the county could be held responsible. 

Kristi Noem wrote that she was angry with her dog. It had ruined a pheasant hunt by flushing birds incorrectly, and then she brought it to a place with chickens and her dog caught and killed some of them, she wrote. She shot her dog and a goat. She wrote that she hated them both. 

There was no anger at that board of commissioners hearing. We were reluctant and sympathetic. The dog's owner was sobbing and pleading with us to save his dog. It was a good dog and was just having fun, he said. It was his fault, not the dog's. Spare the dog, please.

All three commissioners agreed the law struck a hard balance that reflected the needs and attitudes of an earlier era, when Jackson County had an agricultural economy and vulnerable livestock. The laws seemed antiquated to us. The laws permitted landowners to shoot a strange dog on sight if it was amid their livestock, and the law required a death sentence on a first offense for a dog that caused livestock to run. But the Oregon legislature had had multiple opportunities to change the law and it had not. We voted unanimously to do our duty.

(The dog wasn't "put down." For some reason the dog was not in custody of the Animal Control Department. It was at the young man's house. After the hearing, the dog owner drove straight home and gathered his things and moved out of state, taking his dog with him. The dog was a fugitive. We heard word from the young man's roommate that neither his roommate nor the dog could be located. They disappeared. The county lacked the resources to try to find the "lost dog," so nothing more came of it.) 

I presume Kristi Noem was attempting to signal voters that she was tough-minded enough to be vice presidential material. Joni Ernst had won a senate seat in Iowa by introducing herself as someone who grew up castrating pigs. Iowa voters liked that. Noem was documenting she wasn't just pro-gun on paper. She was willing to use guns to shoot a "bad dog." She is also signaling farm sensibilities appropriate to balance Trump, a symbol of urbanity. Farmers are closer to the source of meat than are city people who think of beef, pork, and lamb as something one buys cut up and packaged in cellophane. Animal death is part of farm life. 

Oregon law changed in this century, along with the economy and demographics of the state. It is still dangerous for a dog to chase livestock, but now there are a series of progressive punishments for the dog owner. A county commissioner now has options of fines for the owner and or letting a dog owner move the dog away from livestock.

 
Kristi Noem's story is more shocking to the sensibilities of urban voters than it would be in the farm country of South Dakota. I hear news and opinion hosts on MSNBC, amazed and mocking her. She shot a dog! Wow! That reflects the cultural divide in the country. Democrats don't "get" rural America, and that is why the precinct where my farm is located -- six miles outside Medford -- votes three to one Republican.

 
Yet Noem handled it poorly, even for a rural audience. Noem was posturing. Americans love their dogs. Dogs are special. If the dog is "bad" then it reflects on the owner. There are hard jobs involving the death of animals that need to be done around farms, but they are done from necessity, not hatred or anger, and not to show off one's toughness to win votes. Farmers bring animals "to market" because raising livestock is a business. Sometimes one culls animals.   

But you don't present yourself as triumphant for shooting a dog you didn't train.

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Here is an article on the former state of the law in Oregon. Here is the new law, allowing alternatives remedies if a dog chases livestock.

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