A family of Glasgow Housing Scheme, East Bank Berbice is grieving the loss of their dog which was shot dead by a man after the dog killed his goat last Thursday.
The man, a licensed firearm holder was taken into police custody but was released a few hours later. His firearm which was confiscated was also returned.
Venica Cort, a teacher, told this newspaper that she was away at work when she learnt that the 90-pound dog which belonged to her husband Curtis Cort, had been shot. When she returned home she saw the remains at the corner of the canal.
She said that ever since the shooting her husband would “wake up and cry for the dog.” Their three children, all below age ten were also attached to the dog and are all very sad and are crying as well.
“They used to play with the dog and ride it and even the neighbours’ children used to come over and play with it,” the woman said sadly.
Her husband had purchased the mixed-breed: Fila, Rottweiler and German Shepherd dog from Suriname at a cost of $600,000.
She was sorry that the dog had attacked the goat and said they would have been willing to compensate the owner who lives in the other scheme.
She said her gate would normally be locked and could not say how the dog got out. Some residents told her that they begged the man not to kill the dog and advised him to report the matter.
Further, she said the man’s dogs would “run out of his yard on persons. Up to this morning [yesterday] his dog ran out on people…”
A hire car driver told this newspaper that he was passing at the time when he saw a crowd and decided to stop.
He saw some boys pelting in the bush and upon inquiring he learnt that the dog was attacking the goat. The boys were shouting to the firearm holder to “come quick and kill the dog.”
He said the man, 65, then took his 12-gauge shotgun and “fired a shot and the dog hollered and swam out of the canal to go away. The boys tell the man again to shoot the dog and he fired another shot and killed it.”
Before the shots were fired he too begged the man not to shoot the dog.
Residents are calling on the police to take appropriate action and for the intervention of the Guyana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
