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After dog’s death, effort rises to ban guns to put pets down

Monday, November 16, 2015

Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H.

The death of a brown-and-white, mixed breed named Bruno on the northern fringe of New Hampshire’s White Mountains has sparked an angry response from animal-rights activists who want to ban owners from using a gun to “put down” old, sick or dangerous dogs.

“It was done in such a cruel manner. The dog was shot multiple times and left to die,” said Katie Treamer, one of the founders of Justice For Bruno, a group lobbying to make it a felony to shoot a pet to death in New Hampshire. “In this day and age, it’s just not a responsible way to euthanize a pet.”

A humanely placed bullet is a generations-old method of dispatching pets in rural parts of the country where a veterinarian’s syringe can be expensive and hours away. And even those angry at how Bruno died say outlawing the practice isn’t likely because it is so deeply ingrained in the nation’s agrarian traditions, where farmers and ranchers have long put down domestic animals with a gunshot.

New Hampshire is among 27 states plus the District of Columbia that have no laws governing “emergency euthanasia,” according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. Justice For Bruno has contacted state officials and its change.org petition has more than 36,000 signatures in support of a new law.

Bruno was found shot four times in September in the former timber city of Berlin. Bruno’s owner, Ryan Landry, said in a Facebook posting he was forced to put down the year-and-a-half old dog because it had bitten his children.

Landry declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press.

Treamer said Landry had other options, including returning Bruno – no questions asked – to the shelter where he was adopted.

If the dog truly was dangerous, then medical euthanasia administered by a trained professional would have been the preferred way to end Bruno’s life, she said.