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.

[nolongerademocrat]

OMG! What a waste of time! Animals kill other animals all the time. It is a part of nature! OY!!!!

[Pearls Before Swine]

It’s all about control. Regulations and laws abound for every aspect of life.

[Frank_2001]

Is there anything in the Constitution that says you need a license to kill a deer? Just wondering.../s;)

[Louis Foxwell]

Hope for a judge with a brain.

[Concho]

Need to put the dog on Blumer

[Gennie]

Maybe dogs and cats will need hunting licenses next??? lol

[cripplecreek]

You have no idea how many of us around Jackson county are ashamed of this story. This is what dogs do and they do it well. My jack russell kills woodchucks in under 3 seconds.

[Castigar]

This is absurd! I used to go after them with a baseball bat (never got one though). Sometimes they would just sit there and stare at me until I was almost on top of them. Some of those suckers are BIG!

[org.whodat]

LOL

[tet68]

What have they done with my country?

[Darren McCarty]

I bet the prosecutor is mad that he won’t plea to a fine. It hurts the county’s pocketbook.

[RatRipper]

We need justice here . . . sic the dog on the prosecutor.

[kbennkc]

People should not plea to this kind of carp. Demand a jury trial.

[Red_Devil 232]

I am so glad I have not posted pictures or videos when I find my two guys with a dead rabbit or a squirrel.

[Thermalseeker]

What have they done with my country?

Best summed up in two words: Ivy League.

[mamelukesabre]

Well, if the kids really did sic the dog on the raccoon with the intention of killing it...they are technically in violation of the law since a raccoon is a game animal with a hunting season.

You can bet your a$$ if they did this to a deer they’d be in trouble. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this enforced on raccoons before.

[bgill]

Blumer said the dog was encouraged to attack the raccoon and “tear it apart.”

I suspect it was the encouragement that's getting him charged. Seems there's more to the story than if the dog attacked the raccoon on it's own.

[tet68]

At least a dog knows vermin when it sees it,
a coon will drown a dog in a heartbeat if it
gets it in water, will they charge the coon then?

[GeronL]

This just in....

Sea Lion faces charges after gulping down a fish in the San Francisco Bay.

“We have outlawed this barbaric practice” said Ghey Prancer, state Senator from Fabulous.

Sea Lion faces the maximum of 6 months confinement at a night club in the Tenderloin District.