Man faces charges after dog kills raccoon that caused damage to garage

Jackson Citizen Patriot ^ | February 09, 2011, 6:00 AM | Danielle Salisbury

[Gennie]

Man faces misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty after his dog kills young raccoon that caused some damage to garage

Seth Foster, 23, said he found his family garage in disarray last summer and sent his dog in the building to investigate.

Grizz, a blue heeler, returned with the culprit, a young raccoon.

As two teenage boys watched, one of them filming its actions with a cell phone, Grizz killed the coon, Foster said.

Now, Foster is facing a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty resulting in death, which is punishable by a maximum of 90 days in jail and a $500 fine. A jury trial is scheduled for Feb. 25 in Jackson County District Court.

Foster, whose father owns a nuisance animal control business, contends he did not do anything wrong. The raccoon damaged his family’s property on Ivan Drive in Spring Arbor Township.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said of the charge. “Everybody I’ve talked to says it’s ridiculous.”

There is a proper way to deal with a pest and it does not involve animal agony, said Chief Assistant Prosecutor Mark Blumer. Raccoons can be trapped alive or quickly and efficiently killed, he said.

Blumer said the dog was encouraged to attack the raccoon and “tear it apart.” He likened this to cockfighting or dogfighting, both of which are illegal. “There is legitimate sport, and then there’s cruel sport,” he said.

“Because you have a license to kill a deer, doesn’t mean you can break all its legs and watch it die slowly.”

He said the prosecutor’s office offered Foster a “reasonable settlement,” the details of which Blumer did not know, but Foster declined to take it. “I am innocent,” Foster said.

The two boys also were charged. Their cases were handled by the juvenile court. Blumer did not know how or whether they had been resolved. The case files are not open to the public.

Foster said the boys lived near his family at the time and would sometimes come to their home. They egged on the dog, he said. Foster said he took the raccoon from Grizz, but the dog got it back.

It did not take Grizz, a smaller herding dog, a long time to kill the animal, Foster said.

A neighbor’s mother called the police, Foster said, and a deputy arrived. According to court records, the incident occurred Aug. 1.

The dog helps Foster and his father, Mike Foster, locate raccoons in attics or small crawl spaces while the Fosters do their work. They catch the animals and sometimes euthanize them.

Mike Foster owns Foster’s Wildlife Control Services. He’s been in the business for about 30 years. The company specializes in trapping, removing and excluding nuisance wildlife. He said he and his son hunt and the family primarily eats wild meat.

In all his work with animals, Mike Foster said he has seen worse than a dog killing a coon. “People put out antifreeze for animals to poison,” he said.

“You can’t call one thing cruel and let other stuff slide.”

The whole incident has been “blown out of proportion,” he said. “To me, it’s no different than if you buy a cat to kill mice.”

There is a difference, Blumer said. The killing of mice is not controlled.

There are trapping and hunting seasons for raccoons. According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment, a property owner without a license or permit may kill a raccoon all year if the animal is damaging or about to damage private property.

Mike and Seth Foster said the raccoon Grizz killed put a hole in the garage. It damaged a door, ate stored bird feed and knocked tools off a work bench. It was “raising hell,” Mike Foster said.

Dogs cannot be used in Michigan to kill game, only to chase, retrieve or find it, a DNRE spokeswoman said.

Blumer said it would be different if the dog had gotten the raccoon on its own and killed it without human intervention. In that case, it’s nature.

[chessplayer]

“Yes, let’s let the populations of deer, raccoons, coyotes and other pests overrun all human areas and carry disease and destruction so that no one may take enjoyment in their death.”

Yes, all of God`s creations are nothing but “pests” that are there so we can kill them for our “enjoyment,” right? You know very well the difference between killing some disease carrying rats and setting a pack of dogs on a racoon so it can be ripped apart for you enjoyment.

“That’s one weak analogy.”

A perfect analogy. Dahmer got great enjoyment out of killing helpless animals. And you see nothing wrong with killing animals just so you can get some sick kick out of it.

[Red_Devil 232]

Irish Setters.

[trisham]

It must be fun having such beautiful dogs just hanging around your house. :)

Just looking at them is a treat. At our previous home there was a male Irish Setter who came into our yard quite often. I would grab a leash, put it on him and walk him down the block to his home. What a handsome sweetie he was, and BIG!

[cracker45]

I have owned a couple of them years ago - wonderful, very even-tempered dogs, and man, but they do like to run like the wind! One just loved to “point” cats to the extent that he would climb up trees to get closer to them. He wasn’t as graceful climbing down as climbing up! heh heh

JC

[Red_Devil 232]

Our Male “Aladden” is big 130 lbs. and saddly over weight. The are a couple of clowns and very loyal. They both demand attention which the get. They have an alarm clock that rings right around 3AM that demands they go out - and they let us know!

[triumphant values]

You know very well the difference between killing some disease carrying rats and setting a pack of dogs on a racoon so it can be ripped apart for you enjoyment.

Raccoons carry more rabies than rats do and can do far more destruction to property in less time.

I'm a big proponent of hound hunting for coyotes and coons. We have far too few doing it and it has hurt other game populations through their unchecked predation. I didn't realize FR was such fertile ground for the PETA crowd.

[trisham]

It’s been my experience that they are wonderful and funny characters. We have older Rhodesian Ridgebacks, and they often alert us that they must go out around 3-4:00 AM. Fortunately, we’re both insomniacs. :)

[Newton]

Winning The Future!.....I'm beginning to think we are one regulation away from the point where citizens are criminals for merely getting up in the morning.

[cracker45]

In much of the USA, coons are the PRIMARY vector for rabies nowadays.

You can also surmise that many of our members have never tried to raise chickens for eggs and fryers in a farm setting. We kept two fox terriers that were busy every night keeping the coons, possums and foxes away from our chicken coop where I grew up. It was a never-ending battle...

JC

[SgtHooper]

The pooch on the right is clearly guilty.

[Red_Devil 232]

Yep! And he was ready to bolt from the scene when I snapped the picture! Gave himself up right around dinner time!

[chessplayer]

“I didn’t realize FR was such fertile ground for the PETA crowd.”

Still don`t get it, do you? I highly doubt you ever will. Someone who believes that watching other living things suffer so they can get some kicks is beyond trying to reason with.

[triumphant values]

Still don`t get it, do you?

Yeah I get it. You're an anti-hunter, animal rightster. You anthropomorphize animals and apply a analogous morality to their treatment as you would humans.

Sport hunting, bull fighting, cock fighting, the Roman Coliseum, bear baiting, well by your reckoning there ought to have been a billion serial killers throughout history.

Yeah, I've gotten some pleasure out of another creatures pain, some of those creatures were human. We all have, you included, so you can save the holier than thou routine.

[momtothree]

The doggie on the right looks really, really guilty. LOL

[Gargantua]

Funny. All the people I ever met who don't like orphaned raccoon raisers are queer. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

;-\

[Gargantua]

"I have neighbors begging me to help get rid of them and I live in town..."

Wow! So, you must be, like, an expert or something, right? I mean, if friends actually ask you to help get rid of coons, what more is there to possibly know? You're like, real smart, huh?

Yeah you're right... just raising them and doing soft-release back into the wild for over half-a century (50+ years) hasn't taught me anything about them. I wish I had people asking me to help them with raccoons.

Must be real cool to live in town...

:-|

[cracker45]

Don’t try the self-righteous preener with me. I grew up on a small, nearly self-sufficient farm waaaay out in the country, and am well aware of the destruction coons can cause to one’s livelihood. My point about living in town was that now the varmints are becoming urbanized, but still are destructive varmints that most folks can’t cope with. I live in town because that is where the jobs were and can’t wait to sell my house and get back to the country now that I’ve retired.

If you’re on the west coast, it may well be that some of those you’ve “rehabilitated” over those 50+ plus years are now trashing my neighbors’ yards and intimating their pet cats and dogs due to your “help” and meddling! Hand raising a juvenile animal for release into the wild is mostly a futile and stupid idea - makes yoe FEEL good, but is a quick death sentence to the animal, because it isn’t prepared to survive.

So YES, I still think you don’t know squat about wild coons!

JC

[Venturer]

I knew I would be flamed for that post.

You picked one sentence about how people got rid of unwanted cats 70 years ago and you flamed me.

Of course I wouldn’t do that now, Today I would place them in a box and take them to the Animal Shelter and let them do the dirty work for me. You tell me what you would do with them.Too many people let them run wild or fill the house with them creating a health hazard or a stinking home everyone avoids.

We read every day of animal hoarders who live in crazed homes reeking of animal waste, of Animals wardens who come and gather up these animals from their waste filled environment.

The end result is still euthanasia,but today we do it the kinder, gentler way.

[U S Army EOD]

They did that all the time. One dog was a big Australian Shepard that litterally raised one of them. They would go out together with the dog sniffing and picking up brush piles. Then the cat would dive in and grab the rats../p>