An officer shoots and kills a pet dog mistaken for a coyote

(AP) – An animal control officer shot and killed a pet dog in a Massachusetts town after mistaking it for a coyote in an incident that angered the animal’s owner, but local police are describing it as an unfortunate mix-up.

The shooting happened Tuesday after police received a call about a coyote in the backyard of an apartment building, said Northbridge, Mass., police chief Timothy Labrie. An animal control officer went into the woods to look for the coyote, found the animal in a threatening position and shot it dead, he said.

The officer then examined the animal further and saw that it was wearing a flea collar and was a domestic dog, not a coyote, Labrie said. According to him, the authorities found the owner of the dog.

The dog’s owner, Kirk Rumford, of Northbridge, said the dog was a husky named Odin, who was less than a year old. Rumford said he felt non-lethal methods could have been used and that his dog did not look like a coyote.

“My dog would be the most luxurious coyote ever on steroids,” Rumford said. “It’s huge compared to that. Look at the photo of a coyote in Massachusetts and my dog. My dog was beautiful. He looked like a wolf, and there are no wolves in Massachusetts.”

This image of Kirk Rumford shows his dog Odin, a husky who was accidentally shot... — This image provided by Kirk Rumford shows his dog Odin, a husky, who was accidentally shot by an animal control officer on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, in Northbridge, Massachusetts. During the incident, local police mistook Odin for a coyote. described as a sad confusion. (Kirk Rumford via AP)(AP)

Rumford said he has received a lot of support from the community, and he hopes his story will help prevent further encounters between dogs and authorities. He described Odin as “goofy” and a “lovely goof” who had a loving disposition and enjoyed playing with other dogs.

Labrie said the animal control officer was smart to mistake the dog for a coyote, and the officer will not be disciplined. Dog owners can prevent such mix-ups by keeping their dogs safe, Labrie said.

“We have binding laws. At the end of the day, if you can secure your fenced areas, watch your dog, use whatever methods you can to keep the dog in your yard,” Labrie said. “Also, if your dog has a tendency to wander in the woods, I make sure to have ID tags on them.”

The shooting comes at a time when Massachusetts and elsewhere in the country have seen an increase in human-coyote interactions. One city, Nahant, moved to become the first in the state to contract with the federal government kill coyotes after residents said the animals had killed pets and created a dangerous nuisance.

Some scientists say that coyotes in the eastern states have begun to show increasingly wolf-like traits because they took a position near the top of the food chain. They are also difficult to control.

Remington Moll, associate professor of natural resources at the University of New Hampshire, led a study published in Ecography this month, which suggests that coyote hunting may not be reducing their numbers, but may be playing a role in increasing them.

“Intensive removal of coyotes can obviously reduce populations in the short term, but removal can also result in a younger coyote population with higher rates of breeding and immigration,” Moll said in a statement.

Northbridge, a town of about 16,000 people about 43 miles west of Boston, has had its share of human-coyote interactions, Labrie said. The animal control officer who shot the dog was an experienced officer who had many encounters with coyotes over the years, Labrie said.

“We’ve definitely seen a slight increase in coyote calls,” Labrie said. “What causes it, I don’t know.”