A man killed his neighbor’s labrador with nine K9 shots. The dog had entered the man’s garden while he was chasing a squirrel.
Marlon Caballero, the owner of K9, tearfully recounted the episode on local TV stations in Pomona, California.
Caballero’s family had recently moved to the area and the four-legged friend was getting used to his new home. Around one in the afternoon on the last Sunday in November K9 was playing in the garden when a squirrel suddenly appeared.
Intrigued, the dog immediately started chasing him and in doing so he found himself in the neighbor’s garden. The man, whose identity has not been disclosed, started shooting.
“I walked over to the fence and started calling K9. As I was walking across my yard, I heard three gunshots,” Caballero recalls. “Then I saw the neighbor with a gun in his hand and my dog wounded; I asked the neighbor if he could please let me take K9 again.” But there was no way: the neighbor went back to the dog and shot him at least six more times, killing him.
The Caballero family is devastated by grief. She still hasn’t had the strength to get rid of K9’s doghouse; even the other dog of the house appears lost without his playmate. Added to the pain is the concern dictated by having an armed and violent neighbour. The man is accused of cruelty to animals and of having discharged a gun in public.
The Caballeros have filed a restraining order against him because they fear he will hurt them again, as if killing K9 wasn’t enough.