Deputy kills dog that charged him

NEBRASKA -- A Lancaster County Sheriff’s deputy shot and killed a dog in Martell late last week after the 10-year-old Bernese mountain/Doberman pinscher mix charged at him.

The dog, Frieda, and a 3-year-old Labrador mix named Bo got loose late Friday morning and roamed about a block before trying to attack a  neighbor who called the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office, Deputy Jose Rodriguez said in a report.

He arrived to find Bo standing outside an open door, and then Frieda came out and tried to attack him.

Rodriguez fired three shots, hitting the dog twice and killing her, said Sheriff Terry Wagner.

Frieda's owner, Billie Thompson, said she doesn't blame him for killing the dog, which she'd had for about a year.

“I threw up after seeing my dead pup, and I cried,” she said. “She charged him. I know he didn’t have a choice. He felt really terrible."

Thompson said she recently had to move out of a four-bedroom house on an acre of land into her son's trailer house, where the dogs spent a lot more time inside and were confined in a small area when they were outside.

“Everything they knew was different,” said Thompson, who is getting a divorce. “The stress of moving and stress of change.”

She said she kept the dogs for her 10-year-old son's sake.

“He’s lost his home, his family life. ... I didn’t want him to lose anymore, so I did everything I possibly could to keep them.”

Frieda had gotten out before and last month, she nipped at a 3-year-old girl, leaving scratches and a bruise on her lower back, Wagner said.

“They said it was unprovoked,” Thompson said.

Officials quarantined Frieda for 14 days to make sure she didn’t have rabies, Thompson said.

“She was a good dog,” she said. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but she was.”

Wagner said another of Thompson's dogs, an Australian shepherd/chocolate Lab mix, was put down after it got loose, attacked and hurt people at least three times. The Thompsons had appealed the order to put the dog down, but the Lancaster County Board of Health upheld it.

Wagner said it’s the only dog he’s ordered killed in 19 years as sheriff. Plus, he said, deputies have cited the Thompsons eight times in the past 13 years for having a dog at large.

“We’re not trying to pick on these guys,” he said, “but they’re just not very responsible dog owners.”

Thompson said she plans to buy a crate and lock up Bo, who, she said, has been a wreck for the past week.

“We have to figure out a way to keep him safe.”

(Lincoln Journal Star - Oct 17, 2013)