Dog killed in Idaho Falls

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Story Published: Jun 19, 2009 at 6:19 PM MDT

Story Updated: Jun 19, 2009 at 6:19 PM MDT

By Anthony Congi

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IDAHO FALLS - "Lost my best friend. She was like a child to me," says John Sorenson.

While John Sorensen was on vacation, his father-in-law was taking care of his three dogs.

When his father-in-law got to the home Monday, he found their Australian Shepherd cut up and their Labrador, Nacho, lying in a pool of blood.

He took the dog to Countryside Veterinary Hospital where they tried to keep her alive until the family got back. Unfortunately, Nacho died Thursday morning. John called home, and heard the bad news.

"I know that the neighbors have two pit bulls, or American terriers that have been running back and forth along my fence line. I've had to do a number of repairs on the fence from digging," says Sorenson.

After rushing home, he called the police.

"We had an officer come out here last night. And talk to the owner i guess of the home and she actually admitted, she said that's something she thinks that her dog could possibly have done," says Sorenson.

"It was attacked by another animal," says Dr. Brad Francis who treated Nacho.

"Maybe more than one dog potentially. This dog had probably 20 to 30 puncture wounds, it's left ear was basically detached from it's head, some lacerations on it's front legs so it was definitely attacked by another dog."

But was it only the dogs? John believes someone else could be behind the attack.

"There's no way, I don't think that the dogs could've knocked down the fence. It was probably, it might have been malicious. I don't know," says Sorenson.
"If you're moving the fence, the whole fence moves. But a board's not going to come out. I mean I can pull on this thing and it's not going anywhere."

Sorenson showed me just how solid they were. And as he showed me, it takes quite a bit of force to move the boards.

I tried getting comments from the neighbors, but no one answered the door.

"I'm really mad that something like this happened. It's just wrong. It's wrong in so many ways," says Sorenson.

Before John and his wife left on their trip, they noticed none of their roses had blossomed.

But right where Nacho was found, a single rose has.

"I've taken pictures of that rose and i'll remember my dog that way," says Sorenson.

Dr. Francis says it would be very difficult to find out who killed the dog because it's very tough to match tissue and DNA samples of dogs.

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