A special place in whatever hell...

[FoxyJama]

I visited my parent's house yesterday for 'Thanksgiving' dinner (we do this once a month - don't ask). I grew up in the country, and my parents still live there. Unfortunately, some illegal aliens from Mexico have moved into 2 trailer houses very close by. They have shot 3 of my parent's dogs, and yesterday as we were sitting down to dinner we heard 2 shots. Coyotes and bobcats are common, so gunshots are not something people in this rural area get too concerned with.

After dinner, about 20 minutes later, I saw my parents' 7 month old beagle puppy dragging herself through the field south of their house. She had been shot by a pistol in the stomach and it was gruesome. I'm surprised she made it as far as she did. My dad grabbed his gun right away and put her down quickly, because she had already been through more pain than any puppy should ever be.

This is the third dog my parents have lost to these trigger happy f#$%holes. The first my parents believe was because one of our male labs went over there because they had a bitch in heat that wasn't fixed. Penning her obviously wasn't the preferable alternative to SHOOTING MY PARENTS' PET 3 TIMES IN THE CHEST and leaving him to bleed to death in a dry creek bed.

My parents have confronted them, yesterday they were playing pool and drinking beer when my dad went to confront them about Molly. They played dumb, despite the fact that nobody else lives anywhere within miles of my parent's place. The cops of the county will do nothing to help my parents, or other neighbors who have complained of missing pets. In a small rural community like theirs, there are valid reasons for shooting another man's dog. Disruption of livestock, an attack on your property or pets, etc. They own no livestock, and there is nothing a 7 month old beagle puppy could do that would justify shooting her in the stomach and letting her crawl off to die.

This post is not about asking for your pity. It's about asking for revenge. My parents don't want to turn this into a civil war. Shooting their dogs in retaliation is as wrong as them shooting Molly. The dogs and children are innocent in this. I know they are superstitious people, and I have heard of them contacting a local version of a 'witch doctor' for Mexican Catholics. My dad wants to post signs to scare them, and keep them from doing anything to us and our pets. I'm doing what I can to contact DHS (aka INS) and reporting them as illegal immigrants, hoping that because the cops won't take action against them, DHS will.

What would you do? What should my family do?

[Tzaphiel]

first off... skip the local cops... look for the local apsca or other local animal cruelty agency... The humane society, anything like that... hopefully those types of organizations will hold more sway with the cops than just a general complaint... and if others have lost pets to these people get them involved too... its not right to do that to animals, and they have no right to shoot them just for being on their property...

Talk to your vet if nothing else... tell him or her what's going on and see who the vet can get you in touch with...

My neighbors across the alley from us used to shoot at the cats on their back fence with a bb gun... luckily it was just a bb gun and nothing too severe.... They shot my cat once... luckily the police force here actually responded... I"m sorry you're not getting a response from your local police...

but reporting them to the INS may cause more problems than it starts... especially if they are naturalized citizens or working towards it already...

There is a solution... keep your pets at your house... if they live a good distance away they could claim that they thought the pets were strays... i know its hard sometimes to keep pets at home; but, the comment about penning up their girl that was in heat... well (as harsh as it sounds) that does go both ways...

I love my animals, I'd be furious if someone harmed them... but if it was because they were somewhere they shouldn't have been... that's my responsibility as much as it's the responsibility of the other party involved...

Sorry if that last part sounded a bit cold... But keeping them at home IS a very quick fix to keeping the neighbors from shooting them... now... if they start coming into YOUR yard to shoot at them then you definately need to talk to the police

[Tarryk]

Agreements with Tza. Talk to the humane society and/or your vet first and get advice.

DO NOT TALK TO ANYONE FROM "PETA" OR "ALF". If either of those two organizations are even so much as brought up in a phone conversation, hang up. They're terrorist organizations, and that's not the kind of revenge you need to be looking for.

But obviously the cops aren't going to be much good here, and they don't often respond well in cases of animal cruelty or murder. Best bet is the humane society, if only to ask for advice.

[FoxyJama]

Unfortunately, most of my parents' dogs are working cowdogs, and while they are trained to stay on our property, the property borders the neighbors only by a dirt road. Following Molly's trail yesterday, she was on our side of the road when she was shot. We do have dog kennels, but with working/hunting dogs they need more room to run than that provides. Don't worry, I don't think it sounds cold, it is something I've told my parents many times. All of their dogs are tagged, wear reflective collars, and there aren't too many working breed strays in the area of cowtown my folks live.

[Suue]

ASPCA sounds like a good idea in theory, but those sort of agencies really are only effective in urban settings. What may be more effective his to hit the county courthouse and find out who the property owner is. If they are illegal they cant own it themselves. Get the contact infomation of the land owner ..easy enough with an internet search or two.. and have your parents and everyone else involved (or not involved) contact the landowners and file complaints. Daily. Twice Daily. Write the local paper editor complaining about the situation, if they'll allow it have the land owner mentioned by name. The point being, make it to where it would be better for him to remove the problem than suffer the attention drawn to him. Find out if he's a member of any community clubs IE Rotary type orgs, and file complaints with them.

Of course, if it's a cattle community I would just start filing reports about missing cattle and such. It's amazing how fast the sherrif will get his ass in gear when the species changes from canine to bovine.

[FoxyJama]

Thanks, Suue, I think that's a great place to start, I appreciate the advice, guys. I'll feel better about it when I'm able to at least write a letter to someone. I think voicing my grief here about it helped a lot too, it was just a traumatic day yesterday and I had to do something to get it out of my head and do something about it.

[Draynam]

Personally, if someone had shot one of my pets and I knew who had done it, I'd have no problem spending some time in jail for maiming someone. Nothing fatal mind, just enough to really hurt for a really long time. Then again I'm an idiot, so that particular course of action probably wouldn't work for everyone.

[Decavolt]

Suue has the right idea. ASPCA and vets can't really be effectual in this situation, when it involves such bass-ackwards people that clearly don't care. So, to actually make something happen:

Make sure every media organization in and out of the area knows about it. Hell, I'd even email Nightline (national news show) about it. Tell every paper, TV news station, college paper... everyone. And do it repeatedly. People will get seriously pissed. When the news gets on a story like a rabid dog, the local law enforcement has no choice but to do something about it to stop the PR nightmare. Start a webpage dedicated to these assholes and what they've done, and post flyers all over the entire county with the address so that every single person knows. When these jackasses are refused service at the grocery store because people know what they've done, they might think twice about acting like cave-dwellers.

There are plenty of other more subversive revenge tactics to seriously fuck these people over, but nothing I'm willing to post or encorage in a public forum. If, hypothetically, you were to PM me though....

[Suue]

Decavolts hit the nail right on the head. Be brutal in the assault. Take a photo of the deceased animal, put it on a flyer labeled 'Have You Seen My Dog?" along with an explanation of the situation. (Have to be careful here how you word it and exactly how much information you publish.) Spend a day handing out the flyers and explain to everyone who will listen what doesnt read on the paper. Get creative.

Where I'm from there are two rules in life. Dont screw a mans wife, and dont mess with his dogs. I'd be the first person to happily deny services of any sort to these fucksticks.

[Nexeus]

To echo a few things that has been said:

1. CALL THE ASPCA, or an animal rights activist group.
2. DO NOT CALL THE INS - there are reasons why I say this, and in this case it is more of an act of revenge rather than actually doing your civil duty. Anyway, mostlikely the INS is going to get involved if they go to jail for more dog shootings.

I never believe in an eye for an eye... but there are times when you HAVE to do what you HAVE to do. I'm more of a what comes around goes around type person, so I really don't reccomend that your parents go shooting their dogs. I do reccomend that your parents put up signs. I do not reccomend that they go to a witch doctor/santarist. Those things always have a weird way of backfiring on you, including blowing up in your own face. To take a line from Constitine, and from what I've seen with those things "there's always a catch".

If all of that fails, write a letter to your police cheif, animal rights activist, and your local government body council person, all at the same time. Explain your problem and get on their ass about it. Also mention that if your parents are loosing money/work because your pets are being shot (i.e. if they are used for their living).

If all else fails, and you have nothing to do, get medival on their ass

[Maephina]

I have to say...

First of all reading this made me pissed. So I am totally with Deca on this one. Get the word out to everyone in that area about missing pets and what has occured. My only concern is that if you directly accuse those individuals without any actual proof you'll be putting your self in trouble by slandering them without jusitification.

As unpleasent as this may be what I'd do if it were me is...
Try and catch them abusing an animal in some way...ANY way. Video tape it...news agencies and the public LOVE actual footage of some jerkoffs getting busted by the camera. That alone would probably propel your attempts to publicize their BS very effectively.

Personally though, if I knew where they lived I'd put a match under their trailers...heh.

[Highlander]

this is kinda digging up this thread a bit, but i found something interesting on the news that i find rather disturbing.....
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... nting_cats

I dont want open season on sezzy...

[Draynam]

Kill all humans.