There now have been two articles in the local press. Here is the second shorter one.

Harbour City Star- Nanaimo October 30 2002

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EDITORIALS

Dog hanging a sick, twisted act

Lady was dead before she was allegedly hanged from a tree on a Cedar property.

Dr. Ken Langelier, a local vet and Star columnist, who had the unfortunate task of having to determine just how Lady met her apparently cruel demise, said circulatory collapse was the cause of death.

What caused the failure of the dog’s blood system is still unknown.

The dog’s owner, Bob Bell, says he, along with nine-year old granddaughter, discovered the dog hanging from a tree in a neighbour’s yard on Thanksgiving Day. [In Canada- October 11]

There is speculation that the dog had gained entrance to the neighbour’s property through a hole in the fence and that the dog was chasing the neighbour’s free-range chickens.

Farmers are legally entitled to protect their livestock from being harried by dogs. They can kill a predator and can legally kill a dog, but it has to be done humanely.

No charges have been laid in the case and one has to wonder why.

Partly it is because the SPCA needs to know for certain the dog was not killed humanely and that information is not available yet.

If the story is true, it would appear that this dog was not killed humanely and hanging it from a tree, even if it were already dead, is a macabre act that no sane, stable person would commit.

One can understand a farmer being angry about a dog chasing his chickens. It’s harder to understand someone who would kill a dog and then hang it from a tree like some sick trophy or twisted scarecrow.

Is there really any doubt that a person who would hang a dog from a tree would care little how the dog died?

Whomever did this is sick. If it turns out the dog was killed inhumanely, there should be jail time.