Donna Cordoba's pet Great Dane, Bailey, was shot twice by a sheriff's deputy answering a false alerm by their newly installed security system. Cordoba did not see the shooting. And no one else did, either, but her neighbors and parents said a Travis County sheriff's deputy shot Bailey two times.
"I just don't understand why they had to shoot my dog?" Cordoba said.
After hours of surgery, and losing a right front leg, Bailey's owners still have questions. The Great Dane left the animal hospital Wednesday. One bullet hit Bailey in the back. The other hit her in the leg.
"I said, 'Why did you shoot the dog?' Because she was just bleeding from her little leg. He said, 'She attacked me,'" witness Joyce Little said.
The deputy was responding to a burglar alarm that turned out to be false. If a law enforcement officer feels their life is in danger. They have the right to use force, even if the threat comes from an animal.
"Whether they bite or not. When they come toward you, if you are not familiar with them, all you see is teeth and hear the growling. You don't know if they are going to bite you. You have to take measures to protect yourself," Roger Wade, with the Travis County Sheriff's Office, said.
Beverly Newman lives in the Estates of Shady Hollow subdivision where the shooting happened. She, too, has dogs.
"I am worried that if a deputy came on my property that my dogs might get shot also," Newman said. Deputies do not receive specific training for handling dogs that are strange to them and Cordoba finds that troubling.
"I think there needs to be some better training on how to encounter animals, and to expect to find a growling barking dog on private property," she said.
The sheriff's office said people need to have their dogs tethered, fenced in and a warning sign. Cordoba did have a warning sign, but she now wonders how best to keep her property safe.
"We've chosen not have [sheriff's deputies] come to our house anymore. We are not going to use our security system. I'd rather have somebody rob me than come shoot my dog," Cordoba said.
The sheriff's office would not get into details of its investigation of the incident. But Wade said the office believes the deputy was justified, though they feel bad about what happened. The deputy is still on patrol.
For now, as Bailey recovers from her wounds, her owners must come to grips with what happened in their own back yard.
The Cordobas plan to use Bailey as a therapy dog for people coping with amputation. Neighborhood MapFor more information about the Interactive Animal Cruelty Maps, see the map notes.
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