The recent attack on a Gillette veterinarian’s horse wasn’t an isolated incident, according to other area livestock owners who say loose dogs have repeatedly harassed and attacked local livestock.
Kaylee Little told Cowboy State Daily that she had a close call at her Gillette horse breeding business Tuesday night.
“My grandma was next door to me, and she called me and said, ‘Kaylee, there's two big dogs out here chasing your horses,’” Little said.
Little had just gotten home and immediately ran to her corrals to find her horses trying to run from a pair of dogs.
“They were viciously going after them,” Little said. “Snapping and biting and aggressively barking, like they're not just playing with them.”
‘I Don’t Put Up With That’
When the dogs saw her, Little said, they took off running. She got in her car, trying either to catch them and prevent future attacks or follow them home and alert the owner.
“But they were hauling butt,” Little said. “They headed west and I haven't seen them since.”
The dogs had gotten into her horse corral, Little said, leaving her livestock nowhere to run. One horse sustained a cut to its leg and Little said more injuries would have been inevitable if she hadn’t been home to intervene so quickly.
The next day, Gillette veterinarian Clare Sheehan, whose horses were attacked by loose dogs earlier this month, sent Little a photo of the suspect dogs. Little said she recognized them as the same pair that chased her horses.
Recognizing that it seems to be an ongoing problem, Little said she reported the incident to Campbell County Animal Control but got a lukewarm response.
“They were like, ‘Well, we'll try and send somebody out there, but I don't know if we don't have anybody available,’” Little said. “So I don't know what's going to happen.”
Cowboy State Daily reached dispatch and animal-control officers at the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office, which houses the animal-control department. They directed questions to a department lieutenant, who was not immediately available and hadn’t responded by publication.
If the proper authorities don’t step in, Little said she might be forced to take matters into her own hands.
“They can't be going around terrorizing people's livestock,” Little said. “I've got several hundred thousand dollars worth of horses, and I don't put up with that. I mean, if they come back, it's not going to be good.”
‘It Was Devastating’
Little said she doesn’t think the dogs appear to be strays based on their weight and appearance. Whoever the owner is, Little said she hopes they can get a handle on the situation.
“They either keep them home, or I hate to say it, but somebody's going to shoot them,” Little said. “People have lots of money invested in livestock, and once a dog starts doing that, they don't quit.”
The report of the October attack struck a familiar chord for Gillette resident Dana Miller, who said a brutal mauling in August claimed the life of her beloved pony, Woodrow.
“It was devastating,” Miller told Cowboy State Daily. “I should have done more. I didn't know more at the time.”
Miller bought Woodrow for $75 at Saint Onge Livestock nearly two decades ago, saving him from being shipped to Canada with two dozen other horses.
“He's a rescue pony and just was a pet, like an over-glorified pet,” Miller said.
While Miller lives in town, Woodrow lived with her grandparents, who have a house with land about 10 minutes out of town. Miller said her grandma called her that August day to tell her that her pet pony was acting oddly. She immediately drove over to check on him.
“He had pus oozing out of the right side of his face, like giant pustules,” Miller said. “Then the left side of his face was just raw.”
When Miller’s vet arrived to examine Woodrow, he told her the injuries to the left side of the pony’s face must have happened earlier in the week, and the pustules on the other side were caused by infection.
They tried to treat him with medication, but when he didn’t respond she had to make a tough choice.
“We had to euthanize him that night,” Miller said.
‘A Perfect Pony’
Miller didn’t post on social media or ask her grandparents’ neighbors if they’d seen anything after that. She said she was so devastated and immediately wondered if he’d been attacked by a bear before her vet ruled out that possibility.
“He goes, ’It can't be a bear,’” Miller said. “There's no scratches. There's no markings like it was a mountain lion.”
Miller said her vet concluded that it must have been loose dogs that got to Woodrow.
“He goes, ‘The typical dogs are pit bulls or untrained herding dogs,’” Miller said. “This is the sort of damage that they do.”
Still, Miller figured it must have been an isolated incident.
“I really was like, ‘It had to have been a fluke,’” Miller said. “Like, whose dogs would do this?”
Then she saw Sheehan’s story in Cowboy State Daily and realized it was more likely a pattern than a fluke. Fearing continued attacks, Miller reported the August incident to animal control.
“They're chasing horses and they've attacked them,” Miller said. “I mean, what's going to keep them from attacking a child?”
Still, Miller doesn’t want to see harm come to the dogs. In fact, if the circumstances were different, she said she would have opened her own home to them because all animals deserve to be taken care of.
“Somebody failed them,” Miller said. “There aren't bad dogs. There are bad owners.”
Months later, Miller said she still can’t shake the brutal image of her gentle, slow-moving pony being torn apart by animals that should have been kept at home.
“He was a really old pony, but a perfect pony,” Miller said. “He didn't deserve to suffer like he did.”
Emma Jane Jackson can be reached at emma@cowboystatedaily.com.
