Heyburn, Idaho – A police officer fatally shot two dogs who escaped from their home on Saturday night. According to a press release from the Heyburn Police Department, the dogs were running loose on I-84 and they would not come to officers who tried to call for them.
The dogs, a Great Pyrenees and a Weimaraner were spotted near Exit 211 and traffic on the roadway was stopped when officers arrived at 5:57 p.m. The decision to shoot the dogs was made just 6 minutes later.
The department press release states, “Recognizing traffic was heavy for Memorial Day, and in fear for the motoring public with great potential of a rear-end collision at 80 mph, the offers made the decision to shoot the dogs.”
The dogs were not strays – their owner has turned to social media with a brief explanation about why the dogs were running loose. In the Facebook post, the owner writes:
We were out of town and our fur babies were being taken care of by relatives. We love them and they were very well taken care of. We live in the country and we have a fenced-in back yard and a large fenced-in dog run they spend every day playing in. We checked our cameras at 5 pm before we headed to dinner and Boomer (pyranese) and Luna (Weimaraner) were both still in their kennel. They reached a neighbor’s house by 5:35 pm then according to the Heyburn PD post they were called and dispatched at 5:50 pm arrived at 5:57 pm, our babies were shot and killed by 6:03pm.
The department is facing a good deal of backlash from the public about the decision to kill the dogs rather than spend more time trying to catch them. The incident remains under investigation.
Please feel free to comment about this tragic situation below.
I have one question, WHY DIDN’T the police use drugs to put the dogs out a bit so they could catch them!! It would only take the time of the police to get there, and the police could have done something, the traffic was stopped!! How can you run into something if you are not moving??? AND why didn’t the officers receive the help of other people that were stopped?? I don’t see this, EXCEPT these men have no control when it comes to shooting their guns, and this time they had a target!! AND if that target was stopped, why did they shoot?? If I were the owners, I would sue, even if I lost, I would sue!!!!!!!!!
looking at the cop who did this it looks like it was time for his dinner break and he just couldn’t wait a second more. what a bunch of clowns. it’s idiots like these guys who should not carry a weapon and give good cops a bad name. you can see those dogs were not strays just by looking at them, they were beautiful. get off your fat ass and slow down traffic and retrieve the dogs or call someone who is smarter than you who can do it. what a shame. i feel for this family but it seems every time someone entrusts their four legged family members to friends or family it ends tragically. these cops should be fired.
This is so wrong there was no reason to shoot them they weren’t attacking anyone and for the officer to just shoot them took the easy way for him instead of taking time to try and catch them safely. I feel he didn’t want to deal with catching them so he decided to shoot them. He needs to be held accountable for killing these babies.
This is so sad! I can’t imagine the feeling this family has, OR the psychological damage by children seeing poor innocent pets shot down in front of stopped traffic! This abuse of gun power needs to be addressed! How would these cops feel if they had a pet? Or if someone they loved had pets that were shot, just because they were running free? No excuse for this!
That poor excuse for an officer needs to be prosecuted! He’s a demented danger to animals and society. My heart goes out to the family.
Why didn’t the police officer call animal control to help round up the dogs? Or heck offer the dogs some food in order to entice them into the patrol car? If they had no food, they could of called another officer to come to the scene with hot dogs or something. Heck ask the passing motorists driving by if they had food. Possible car accidents are a poor excuse for shooting someone’s pets to death. Memorial day is about remembering and honoring the dead, not killing innocent creatures that are inconvenient for traffic flow. Whoever decided to shoot the dogs should be fired and pay restitution to the owners. The police dept needs to make a policy change now to prevent this from happening again.
This is absolutely wrong, so wrong, these were beautiful dogs that made a mistake my exiting the yard, would the same officer shoot his own down to save time. He needs to be fired from his job. Call the animal control,
they would have saved the dogs. These two had no hearts and probably joked about it afterwards. Gun happy police officers. Each dog was probably shot several times.
What a cruel, heartless and lazy POS!! Someone like that should never be allowed to be a cop!!! That is animal abuse! He should be fired and thrown in jail!!
It’s obvious by the time line posted on FB by the dogs owners that those officers didn’t take but about five minutes or less after they arrived, to decide to kill the two dogs. Why try to think this through by warning and thinking of a way to slow upcoming traffic when you can just knock off the “problem”. Too many law officers in to many states, shoot first and think? later, when it comes to animals. Some states are better than others, because this is happened in Idaho, I’m not surprised with the outcome. I hope the officers responsible for killing these wonderful dogs are severely punished but I won’t hold my breath.
It’s obvious by the time line posted on FB by the dogs owners that those officers didn’t take but about five minutes or less after they arrived, to decide to kill the two dogs. Why try to think this through by warning and thinking of a way to slow upcoming traffic when you can just knock off the “problem”. Too many law officers in to many states, shoot first and think? later, when it comes to animals. Some states are better than others, because this is happened in Idaho, I’m not surprised with the outcome. I hope the officers responsible for killing these wonderful dogs are severely punished but I won’t hold my breath.
I normally don’t respond multiple times to a post but this one truly sickens me. seeing those innocent dogs laying in the road dead because of a decision made by 2 irresponsible idiots. i hope this family does not drop this and goes after these jerks. they should not be allowed to carry a gun. who knows if their next kneejerk decision ends with a dead person instead, not that the dogs lives are any less valuable because they aren’t !!!
This police officer needs to be fired! This is my opinion, this cop is too fat to do his job. He didn’t want to have to run after the dogs. So we pulled out his gun and shot them. He’s one lazy SOB. RIP to the sweet and innocent 2 dogs. 💔
Killing innocent pets is NOT OK, you lazy cops. That is not doing your job. I would hate for my beloved to get out and cops called that’s for sure. Murderers! RIP to the beautiful fur babies. xoxox
I do not know how this officer could have killed these two family pets and has a answer for his decision. I agree, he could have called for help or used a different method to secure them. Shame on what he did. I am sure the community at large, is so very distraught as to what happened. I said prayers for the two sweet dogs. I am very sad for their owners – they have lost their two beloved family members…
This is so horrible. Obviously there was no protocol in place for a situation like this and these two dogs lives were wasted. And for them to say that it was because it was Memorial Day weekend
traffic they were concerned what a lame excuse!! Unfortunately this is why people resent the police
incidents like this infuriate the public. This was a senseless killing of these two dogs sweet lives lost and owners in mourning when a simple delaying of the traffic would have sufficed. This is not acceptable the police can do better with so many wonderful police officers out there I know that they
could do better. God Bless the dogs and their owners-I am so sorry for your loss.
As usual with the police, it’s shoot first and ask questions later. There was an incident here where a man’s 2 dogs were shot by police because someone said they chased/bit someone or jumped up (all of which was untrue). A witness said it wasn’t like that at all. This right to bear arms foolishness is the reason for a lot of these unnecessary deaths of people and animals occur. NO ONE should be allowed a gun because none of them know how to use it safely. How many people have lost children because they had a gun that their child got hold of and shot themselves with. As long as there are guns this type of thing won’t ever stop. I feel very sorry for the owners of said animals.
This is about wrecklessnes on behalf of two officers and support for a family who senselessly lost their pets not a platform for you to express your political opinion on gun laws. Shame on you.
I hate Idaho! As far as I am concerned, I will never take my tourist dollars there! They allow teachers to feed puppies to snapping turtles, and cops to shoot dogs that are obviously family pets. Disgusting! Wasn’t it also one of their DNR officials that went to Africa and shot an entire baboon family including babies? They have no concern for wildlife or animals, obviously!
The Police Officer is EXTREMELY FAT. That means he is very lazy. He does not belong in that job. He should be terminated. I hope I hear a follow up to this terrible ending of two pets that were loved.
Isn’t animal control trained to handle these situations? They were in my department.
Why not post the phone number and email to this police department to get this idiot fired?!
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Those were expensive dogs. The officers should have used better judgment of using non leathal methods of cathing those dogs. They were catchable. He just couldn’t be bothered. What if it were your pets????
More loving pets murdered by a badge just because he had a gun and didn’t give a shit. We watch from England, horrified because 1 bullet is never enough for these arrogant bastards, is it? And they think because they have the badge and the gun they can do whatever they want. The public holiday mentioned was just an excuse to get trigger-happy. THEY COULDN’T BE BOTHERED. It happens time and time again. Pet dogs get loose in a neighbourhood and along comes the cop with attitude. DOESN’T GIVE A SHIT. Thank god we don’t have to live like this.