The nearly fatal shooting of a dog last week in La Plata County is raising questions for neighbors and law enforcement about what constitutes animal cruelty in a county where guns and unleashed animals are facts of rural life.
Jon Jessen drove to his friend Patrick McCauley’s house northeast of Durango, bringing with him three beloved dogs and no small amount of auto-mechanic goodwill: McCauley’s 4Runner was having problems, and as a favor, Jessen agreed to take a look at his truck.
On arriving at Chelsey Acres on Florida Road (County Road 240) last Monday, Jessen let his three dogs bound out of the car. Immediately, they started frolicking with McCauley’s dog, and soon, all the dogs were running around.
In the meantime, the men popped the truck’s hood.
For the next 15 minutes, the dogs roamed out of sight, as Jessen and McCauley busied themselves with the inner workings of McCauley’s grumpy vehicle.
Then, the men heard gunshots: bang, bang.
According to La Plata County Code, people have the right to shoot dogs “when no other means can reasonably be employed to prevent death, injury or damage to ... persons, livestock, wildlife or property.”
Durango lawyer Kate Burke, who specializes in animal law, said “people seem to believe that if a dog is on your property, you can shoot it. But they don’t stop or notice these nuances: If you or your livestock is in imminent danger, and you’ve tried everything else, only then can you shoot.”
Jon Patla, director of Animal Protection, said the law is “very subjective. What one person may perceive as threatening behavior, I just may see a dog being a dog.”
Seconds after Jessen and McCauley heard the gunfire, the dogs came running back. The first three were fine.
But the fourth, Lexi – a 6-year-old pit bull mix belonging to Jessen’s girlfriend – was covered with a dark, slippery wetness.
“At first, I thought it was transmission fluid,” Jessen said. “But it was blood. She’d been shot with a .22 caliber.”
Jessen feared Lexi might die. Immediately, McCauley suspected his neighbor, Larry Penick, had shot Lexi.
According to the La Plata County Animal Protection incident report that evening, McCauley told officer Gary Skiba that “Penick had made multiple threats in the past, stating that dogs and even people might get shot if they were on his property or if people were using ATVs on the subdivision roads.”
The next day, Penick told Skiba that he had shot a gun but denied shooting at two dogs that were on his property. During the interview with Skiba, Penick said, he’d arrived home with his wife, Sherry. He said one dog, which he described as a “mongrel looking” and “speckly,” attacked Sherry and his cats.
Sherry, who was at the interview, said Larry had “shot into the air.”
At this point, according to the incident report, Larry Penick “corrected his wife, saying he had shot into a dirt bank,” and, “if I hit a dog, it would have been a miracle.”
In a supplementary written statement provided to Animal Protection last weekend, Penick offered a more detailed version of events, writing that on pulling into their driveway and getting out of the car, his wife cried out, and he thought she’d “slipped.” Then he saw one dog chasing his cat, “Roy,” into the carport; then there was another dog chasing another one of his cats, Cori.
“I chased after them. They went over the side of the hill, so I went back towards the truck to check on Sherry.”
Then, “(I) heard a dog behind me. I turned and shot into the ground to scare it off. It ran around me and towards the road. I saw the other dog standing there, so I shot a second time into the dirt bank to scare them off.”
In an interview, Penick told the Herald that he is a dog-lover, and he shot his gun only to scare the dogs away.
“I didn’t mean to kill any dogs,” he said. “It all happened so fast. One dog was charging at me, my wife, chasing the cats, and when two pit bulls are running at you, it’s like a mountain lion – you’re just trying to protect yourself as much as possible.”
He said he hadn’t tried shooing the dogs away or making a loud noise.
“But we’ve had troubles in this area. We live in the country, and people dump dogs here and let them run around without tags,” he said. “They don’t chain them up. It’s gotten kind of out of control.”
Though Skiba photographed blood stains at the Penicks’ house, “on the concrete pad under the second-story deck,” LPCAP concluded “that there was insufficient evidence to show probable cause that animal cruelty was committed.”
Patla said while dog shootings are not uncommon in La Plata County, it’s rare for authorities to bring animal-cruelty charges.
Civil lawsuits are more successful, he said, citing a 2013 jury that awarded one woman $235 after a man shot and killed her dog after it ran onto his property and killed two of his chickens.
Jessen said the account Penick gave law enforcement made no sense.
“You just can’t go off and shoot somebody’s pet without any warning, like knocking pans together, or yelling at them, talking to their owners.”
After the shooting, Jessen and his girlfriend, Alicia Coniglio, rushed Lexi to Bayfield Animal Hospital.
The dog accrued hundreds of dollars in veterinary bills.
She survived.
Dr. Nannette Wagner-Lockard, who treated Lexi, said the shooting easily could have killed or paralyzed Lexi, given that the bullet entered near her spine and exited through her belly.
“It certainly appears that she was shot from above,” she said.
She said Bayfield Animal Hospital gets dogs with bullet injuries several times a year.
“Sometimes, it’s because dogs were chasing ranchers’ livestock. But usually, it’s about people’s willingness to resort to a firearm before taking some other steps, such as talking to owners or other measures to try and stop unwanted animal behavior.”
Wagner-Lockhard said in terms of temperament, Lexi is a sweet, friendly dog who is calm with strangers.
“We’ve seen her many times here, many members of our staff. And there are dogs I would put into the aggressive category. Lexi certainly isn’t one of them.”
Penick said he was glad Lexi had survived.
“That’s good.”
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
An earlier version of this story misstated John Jessen’s relationship with Alicia Coniglio.
