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Vol. LXI, No. 47
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007
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Vol. LXI, No. 47
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007
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With the community already caught up in the controversy generated by Congo, the German shepherd who severely wounded a landscaper in June, two other dogs in the Township were put down last week after escaping from their owners’ property, killing three sheep living at a nearby residence, and severely injuring six other sheep.
A veterinarian who responded to the scene later euthanized two more sheep with severe injuries.
Avril and Tom Moore, who live in the Cherry Hill Road residence known as Tusculum, own the sheep. Police said they received a call from the Moore residence on November 14 at 8 a.m. reporting that there were two Shepherd-type dogs on their property and that several sheep had been killed.
Township Patrol Officer Tony Strong and Princeton Animal Control officer Mark Johnson responded and spotted the two dogs in the Moore’s sheep pen. As the two men entered the pen, the dogs reportedly squeezed under the fence and ran away. Mr. Johnson recognized the dogs, a six-year-old Belgium Shepherd and a five-year-old Shepherd mix, from a previous incident, and later identified the owner.
The dogs were destroyed at the owner’s request later that day.
“The owners felt that they needed to take responsibility and did not want to take the chance of having the dogs harm somebody,” Mr. Johnson said last week. The dogs’ owner was not identified and no summonses were issued because of the decision to put the dogs down. Had the dogs not been euthanized, Mr. Johnson said, they could have been labeled “potentially dangerous” and subject to a $700 annual licensing fee. Police did not identify the dogs’ owners because no summonses were issued.
The dogs did not have a previous record, except for “running at large,” or leaving their owner’s property, Mr. Johnson said.
In the case of Congo, a two-and-a-half-year-old German Shepherd belonging to Guy and Elizabeth James of Stuart Road, the dog was deemed vicious and ordered euthanized by municipal court Judge Russell Annich Jr. following an alleged unintentionally provoked June 5 attack against one of the James’s landscapers, Giovanni Rivera of Trenton. The Jameses, who have launched a highly visible campaign to save Congo’s life, have filed paperwork in Mercer County Superior Court to appeal Judge Annich’s decision.
On November 13, Judge Annich granted a stay of execution pending the appeal.