TWO Bingara residents have complained to Gwydir Shire Council after their dogs were put down.
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Lee Fleming, a mother of seven, said the council ranger shot her dog, and Julie Kilgour said she had to have her dog put down after its back was hurt when it was returned to her property by being dropped over the fence.
Council general manager Max Eastcott said the council had not received formal written complaints about the matter.
Lee’s dog Charlie and her partner’s dog Buster were seized after a neighbour complained the dogs had been out.
According to Mr Eastcott, the Bingara ranger said the report was that the dogs had attacked another dog.
Lee said the ranger arrived on March 1 and told the couple he had to take both dogs.
“I got my great dane Charlie and my partner got his dog Buster, and we put them on the back (of the ranger’s vehicle) in the cages,” she said.
“I was just an absolute mess, because my dogs are like my family.”
Lee said she received no information about how she could have the dogs returned.
The couple called the ranger and were told Charlie would be declared dangerous.
“I was sobbing on the phone,” Lee said.
“He said, ‘I’m going to have to shoot him because he’s just too savage.’”
Mr Eastcott said the ranger had euthanised the dog when he could not remove it from the vehicle, because he felt it was the only safe option.
“He had no right to put a bullet in my family pet,” Lee said.
“My kids had poddy lambs and were running around the yard all the time; Charlie was a dog that wouldn’t go up to people, he would never growl or bite.”
Lee said if Charlie had to be destroyed, she would have liked to be consulted.
“Did he die straight away, did he suffer? I don’t know that,” Lee said.
“It’s just not fair, not fair at all.”
Mr Eastcott said the council was waiting on a formal written complaint about the matter.
Buster was returned home after Lee submitted a letter of appeal and “character references” from people who had been around the dog.
“I fought it,” Lee said.
“Five weeks it took, but I got him home.”
Another Bingara resident, Julie Kilgour, said her two dogs, one a deaf and blind dachshund, were also seized from her yard after a complaint the dogs had got out.
She was away at the time and said the person looking after her place had left a gate open.
“He (the ranger) walked into my yard, put my two dogs on leads and he led them out,” Julie said.
She said the complaint was “fair enough” because her dogs had been out, but she was upset about the way her dachshund was returned.
“He brought him back and he dropped him over the fence,” she said.
“I had to put that dog down – he damaged his back and he had to be eventually put down.”
Mr Eastcott said the council was yet to receive affidavits or statuary declarations outlining the complaints.
He said the council received many complaints about dogs wandering and it responded to those concerns.
“I have two dogs myself but I have an (appropriate) fence and they don’t get out,” he said.
Mr Eastcott said that if anyone in the shire had a similar complaint they would like investigated, it would not be ignored if they submitted a formal written complaint.
Geoff Johnson from Gwydir Park Animal Refuge said the shire council should have records about what decisions were made about dogs that had been destroyed.
“Let them produce the records (to show) where Lee’s dog was impounded,” Mr Johnston said.
He said there should also be a vet’s account if the dog had been euthanised.
“It’s got to come to a head,” he said.
“It’s got to go to the Department of Primary Industries and the Department of Local Government and be sorted out.”