$145,000 for shot dog

[warddog]

I don't know what state this was in but ALL I can say is folks better be aware of the laws within the state they are hunting in. This guy had every right to protect his property as he had it posted and from everything I read in the article they were well aware of the dogs going onto this man's private property to the deer corn feeders. Evidently from what I read they had done so before and this guy was probably pretty upset with their lack of respect for him and his property for trespassing when he made it clear he didn't allow it. I also do not know the entire story BUT have been involved in two different court cases in which my hunting buddies dog was shot and killed by a farmer and again when a farmers livestock was shot. I will tell you that in Indiana those boys claiming their dogs can't be called off a tree when they go onto private property will NOT hold up here as they have absolutely NO RIGHT to go onto private property to retrieve their dogs or wounded game for that matter. This guy certainly did NOT handle this situation correctly and if he would have called the law and or the game warden here in Indiana they would still be sitting there waiting for those tree dogs to come off the tree as even the law has NO authority to trespass let alone give anyone else permission to do so. That said the guy could have sat there at the fence of his property and NOT allowed anyone to retrieve their dogs with whatever law enforcement they wanted to call in. The other thing that evidently wasn't a factor is if this land owner had ANY livestock on the property at all. If so all he would have had to say is that he was feared for the well being of his livestock and they could NOT prove him wrong. This is the case where my hunting buddy's dog got shot and killed. he had just bought this high priced dog and it was the first night we hunted with it. Farmer had sheep and told the sheriff he was afraid the dogs were after the sheep as they had ran a coon into a barn. The sheriff told us the man had every right to protect his property and the judge in the court rules the same way. In Indian YOU have absolutely not right to go onto private property without permission, period. Not saying that gives the land owner the right to shoot a dog BUT if the land owner knows how to play the game he can and get by with it. AGAIN, I'm not condoning shooting a dog but it can, has and does happen a lot more than we know and the land owners get by with it and this is NOT new as my buddy's dog was shot and killed by a farmer over 30 years ago. This is just another reason my coon hunting days went by the wayside as it is nearly impossible to keep one on the property you have permission to hunt for any length of time. I happen to have 106 acres and my neighbor adjacent has 90 and another one has about 50 and none of us are able to keep our dogs and or wounded deer 100% on our own properties. I never understood how land owners could be so anti-trespass until I became one. It has little to nothing to do with being stingy but a lot to do with respect for the landowner and their wishes for their property. Now days there are many more city dwellers buying up country land and many of them are anti-hunting and anti-wildlife harassing period. Some stated that the old days of turning dogs loose where ever one wanted are gone and if folks are just now observing that they haven't been very observant.

[BCBeagles]

Okay, if they had done it before and been disrespectful, CALL THE LAW...

what next my kid plays in your yard you feel threatened so you fire off at them.....the respect issue is well taken....BUT we have taken this protections and fear of "what if" to new extremes.

You are always going to have buttholes, both hunters and land owners, lets not excuse the lack of common sense on both parties....frustrates me to rationalize stupidity..what the landowner did was STUPID and unsafe...what the hunters did was disrepectful and illegal, BUT should gun fire be the result??....more and more we protect the crazy....maybe this guy was pushed to the brink...but most cases it is irrational behavior, possibly by both parties.....

I just don't understand it???

[rabbitearl]

Here one in Nc.If you put up a ecl fence around your house and the man next door wants you to take it down cause it may hurt his dog.Do you keep it up or take it down? if you put it up to keep others dogs out of your yard.You are order to take it down.But if you put it up to keep your dog in.You are to keep it up. Its all about what you say. Another one is don t put up a sign that talks about a dog in your yard that might bite you if you enter. If this happens and you have a dog that would bite.You re in trouble. the lawyer would say.So you know you had a bad dog the start with, that dog should had been lock up.You re in trouble. I have a friend that's work at the dog pound and have seen this. he had to go to court to tell them he seen the sign when he pick up the dog. the person that own the dog and his house lost in court. It was way in the thousand he had to pay.

[mybeagles]

In Michigan you have a right to retrieve your dogs. You must leave your fire arm behind. Not sure it passes the common sense test to go wake up a land owner in the middle of the night to get permission to fetch your dogs. Many times you won't even know who the landowner is or where he lives. Sounds like this property bordered public hunting land. Often times state land in Michigan is bordered by 5-10 acre lots. No way to know who owner is.

I feel there is a huge difference between retrieving your dogs and just blatantly hunting private land without permission. Clearly the land owner violated the law and the hunters did not but regardless gun owners and hunters everywhere will lose rights and privileges everywhere if people take the law into their own hands and shoot things up to resolve problems.

[MikeC]

Where that idiot messed up was after the guy leashed his dog the guy shot it still. That guy will get his karma is a bitch.

[SMITTY1233]

Jim,

If you shot the land owner with a side arm you would be in prison. I fully support the right to unlimited carry but dealing with a crazy man on his property with gun is going to end up bad. As much as I love my dogs they are not worth taking human lives over.

Sounds to me like these men did everything they could and reached the best conclusion considering who they were dealing with.

I'll be suprised if they ever see the money. I'm with woody, wish it was more.

I agree with your statement here and I know you'd go to jail. If you take someone life that shot you first your likely going to jail. If the guy fired a gun in my direction and killed my dog would it be illogical to be scared for my life? That is the burden for taking someone's life in MI. You can not defend property with lethal force but you can defend yourself with lethal force. If he had threatened to kill me and then discharged a rifle to kill a dog on a leash you were holding I think that is about the line I'd be putting in the sand for being afraid for my life. Just playing devils advocate here and in no way is a dogs life worth more than a human. I am a CPL holder. I do carry... Like my instructor told me in class you have to determine what the line is that has to be crossed before you pull your weapon to defend yourself, your family or others in the area. That is borderline crossing that line for me...

[Swampman]

In WI, you go to prison if you shoot a dog, I know of 3 people this has happened to locally.
We now have the berry picker law, where you can no longer sue a land owner if you get hurt on their property and you didn't have permission to be there.

Also in WI, if a land owner won't allow you to retrieve game or hounds, you call a game warden and they will walk you in and the land owner cannot stop him.
Game wardens have ultimate power here, they don't even need a search warrant to enter your home and search your freezer.

I have never denied anyone access to retrieve game or hounds on the Farm, my only requirement is that I go along and help.
In fact, I have offered up the Gator to haul it out.

I live by the golden rule, do unto others as you would want done unto you.

[Big Mike]

I don't know what state this was in but ALL I can say is folks better be aware of the laws within the state they are hunting in. T

Wdog, This happened in Arkansas.

[warddog]

I don't know a thing about Arkansas state laws but do know about those in Indiana. The Indiana hunting and trapping guide used to be very vague about this until the last several years and now it is put in black and white in the guide under the Trespassing paragraph of the hunting regulations. It states specifically "it is illegal to hunt trap, CHASE or retrieve game on private land without the consent of the landowner or tenant. Always ask permission BEFORE entering private property. A sample private landowner permission form is on page X." Game wardens here in Indiana have super authority here in Indiana as well BUT they can only come onto private property when they have just cause of a violation of the law being committed. A land owner NOT allowing someone onto their private property to retrieve their dogs or game is NOT in violation of the law but in fact is IAW the law as written. I heard one guy in court say that his dogs could NOT read the no trespassing signs and the judge told him, no they can't, but you sure can and if you turned them loose in the vicinity of where they could get upon such private land YOU are at fault! The farmer had shot and killed this guys dog along with one of his own sheep to which he told the judge the dogs had down in his barn. There was absolutely no marks on the sheep other than blood where the shot had killed it when we observed it with the sheriff when the farmer allowed us to go get the guys dead dog. My dog and another buddies dog had returned to us after they were shot at. Both had shot in them but not bad. We were all mad enough to have shot this farmer at the time and a very good thing we had more sense than that as we would all still be serving time. This guy lost a $3500.00 coon dog on his first night hunting it after he had bought it and the farmer lost one sheep worth a hundred dollars or so in which that county paid him for from the dog license fees. The farmer lost nothing in the end and was held harmless for the dog's death and the shot in our dogs that we had to take to the vet to get checked out, from him unloading his shotgun on our dogs. By the way we didn't even know this farmer lived over there as we were actually hunting across a corn field about a mile over on property we had permission to hunt when this all went down.

[billfosburgh]

in Indiana yes it states "hunt, trap chase game or retrieve game on private land" says nothing about retrieving your dog, only game. in Indiana you can get your dog but have to leave your firearm in your truck. i have had this happen many times. last time was this year & the landowner was giving me a hard time so I called the Conservation Officer, he came out & let me get my dog, told the land owner that as long as i didnt take my gun i could go get my dog. so yes you do have the right to go get your dog, the C O told me you should inform the landowner if possible as to your intent, if landowner gives you a hard time to call any law enforcement agency to escourt you in & out.
this is what the C O told me so thats what i go by

[warddog]

What Billfosburgh explains that he was told is the exact opposite that I experienced with the sheriff and the CO standing right in the road next to me telling me they had NO authority to mandate the private land owner to allow them, much less me to go onto their property to retrieve my dogs. The exact language of the law is written as "It is illegal to hunt, trap, CHASE or retrieve game on private land without the consent of the land owner or tenant." This means that it is illegal to CHASE game on private land AND it is illegal to retrieve game on private land. This is two separate issues of why one would be upon private land BUT they both are illegal. Many in years past, including me, believed they were entitled to go upon private land to retrieve game when they crippled or killed it and it went onto private land because the law also states that "it is illegal to kill or cripple a wild animal without making a reasonable effort to retrieve the animal." The DNR has in the past several years elaborated on that by specifically stating that is illegal. Using the word reasonable takes me to the Stand your ground law in Indiana to which I have copied and posted below. I would recommend that those who believe going and getting your dogs on private property when a land owner is irate better understand how they may feel with you doing so especially if you are threatening an ass whoopin or acting like there COULD be any physical harm. AGAIN, what is reasonable when a land owner says no and you say yes and go ahead and trespass upon their property? That is why I say one needs to know exactly and NOT what they feel or they hear the law is before an issue arises and folks get heated up to a point of action being taken. These types of issues are more common now days then they have ever been and I suspect they will get worse. We ALL have rights and I like to know exactly what mine are as a hunter and as a land owner. For every decision that one decides to make they must also understand the consequence(s) of what they have elected to do. Just trying to get folks to think about ALL angles of these situations that most just never think about when they are having fun until it's too late.




Indiana Code IC 35-41-3-2 & IC 35-41-3-3

IC 35-41-3-2
Use of force to protect person or property
Sec. 2. (a) A person is justified in using reasonable force against another person to protect the person or a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person:
(1) is justified in using deadly force; and
(2) does not have a duty to retreat;
if the person reasonably believes that that force is necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to the person or a third person or the commission of a forcible felony. No person in this state shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting the person or a third person by reasonable means necessary.
(b) A person:
(1) is justified in using reasonable force, including deadly force, against another person; and
(2) does not have a duty to retreat;
if the person reasonably believes that the force is necessary to prevent or terminate the other person’s unlawful entry of or attack on the person’s dwelling, curtilage, or occupied motor vehicle.
(c) With respect to property other than a dwelling, curtilage, or an occupied motor vehicle, a person is justified in using reasonable force against another person if the person reasonably believes that the force is necessary to immediately prevent or terminate the other person’s trespass on or criminal interference with property lawfully in the person’s possession, lawfully in possession of a member of the person’s immediate family, or belonging to a person whose property the person has authority to protect.

[tcshy]

Too many pricks in the world. I hope i am never in that position. I would probably be dead or in prison. Glad he got 145,000 should have got more!!!

[Brushy MTN Beagles]

Sad story!!! I guess you never really know what u would do in a situation like that I live in southwest va and have hunted bear,coon,rabbits since I was a little boy. I hate to hear things like this happen. I had a couple of run ends with some pretty crazed deer hunters before on national forest trying to run me off cause they deer hunted in there and thought just because a hound treeing in the area they hunted would run all the deer off lol. I have seen hounds treed and deer be bedded down 15 yards from the tree they was treed at. Here in va you have the right to retrieve your dog just as long as you leave your firearm behind I always like to ask before I have to go on someone else's poperty most of the time people will say go right ahead or no harm done. I feel sorry for the man who lost his hound it's just sad to know things like this happens for whatever reason it was.