Deaf Alabama woman distraught after deaf dog shot dead in her yard

After reading the story, I'm a bit unsure of where the dog was shot. The headline says "in her yard" but the story says that is where she found the dog stumbling around. Was he in a fenced yard? Or was he out running loose? If that is the case, I can't say that him getting shot is necessarily animal cruelty. He may have charged after someone and they shot him because they were afraid of being attacked. If I find out more about whether he was contained in his yard or not, I'll update the story.

ALABAMA -- A heartless goon gunned down a deaf dog in broad daylight, leaving his owner, a deaf Alabama woman, heartbroken - and mystified.

Tabitha Venable returned to her Satsuma yard Tuesday evening to find Si, a 2-year-old Louisiana Catahoula Leopard Cur, acting lethargically, weaving and walking about in a strange way, she told WKRG-TV.

“I asked him, ‘are you OK?’ she told the station.

But nothing helped the mortally wounded dog.

She rushed the pup to a vet where she learned he had been shot and was rushed into emergency surgery. He died as doctors desperately tried to save the pooch.

 

Venable, who lost her own hearing as a 4-year-old, has no idea who would shoot her dog. Police say the pup was plugged with a .22-caliber slug, and whoever is responsible would likely face a felony animal cruelty charge.

"I don't feel safe,” said Venable as she spoke and signed her responses to the TV station. “If somebody shot my dog, it could happen to me. I can't hear a gunshot."

Dog and owner had an inseparable bond when Venable visited little Si two years ago, when he was a squirmy 8-week-old pup at an animal shelter.

"They were about to put to sleep, because he was deaf. And I told her I wanted to see him, and he probably needed a deaf mom,” Venable told the CBS affiliate. “So, we were paired up. He was a beautiful dog. I had to keep him.”

Venable even taught Si, full of energy and a cuddly friend, sign language so they could communicate. The heartbroken mom has started a GoFundMe page, titled Justice for Si, to raise money for a reward to catch whoever is responsible for the heinous murder.

“I can honestly say, that he was my best friend,” Venable wrote on her fundraising page. “The fact that someone would take him from me, in the one place he felt most safe, our own yard, is just so heartbreaking to me and also, so (disturbing). The individual who done this, need to understand the heartache that they have caused. They need to be held responsible for their actions.”

(NY Daily News - Oct 17, 2014)