WEST VALLEY CITY -- Randy Penegar isn't afraid to admit that he shot and killed two dogs in his Chesterfield neighborhood in West Valley City Monday.
"I did it. It isn't the first time, and it probably won't be the last," he said. "This has been an ongoing thing since I was a kid out here -- dogs running around. I'm fed up with it, and I'm not going to keep feeding (the dogs) my chickens."Penegar's chickens -- a good portion of which are gamecocks raised for fighting -- number more than 200. He keeps the brood in a fenced pen inside the yard surrounding his home at 2568 S. Fargo Street (1410 West). The hens are penned together, and the roosters are in individual cages, he said.
It's an expensive hobby, he said. Three of the animals are worth about $1,500.
That cost is one reason Penegar, a retired diesel mechanic, didn't hesitate to fetch his .410-gauge shotgun Monday. The two dogs -- a Labrador mixed breed named Pepper and a purebred English springer named Stacia -- had dug their way into his yard and had killed at least three chickens when he fired the deadly shots, Penegar said.
He was cited by police for illegally discharging a firearm in a neighborhood, a class B misdemeanor. Animal cruelty charges are pending, West Valley Police Lt. Charles Illsley said.
But Melissa Staley, who raised Stacia from a puppy, said her dog isn't a chicken-killer. The agricultural zoned Chesterfield neighborhood is one of West Valley's few neighborhoods with a rural nature, where many residents keep livestock. Staley's next-door neighbor also raises chickens, and in six years Stacia has never attacked them, Staley said.
"My dog is not a chicken dog," she said. "She's scared of guns, and she's not a bird dog. She's never hurt anybody or anything. I would believe him if he had some proof, but I never did see any dead chickens."
A West Valley Animal Control report of the incident said no dead chickens were found on Penegar's property Monday.
Penegar, however, says he has pictures of the dead animals -- three chickens were killed and a fourth was so badly injured he had to kill it, Penegar said.
Staley admits that she hasn't always kept her dog confined to the family yard, 2550 S. Derby St. (1400 West). On Monday, she said, the dog was left to roam, while Staley went to her job.
Dogs roaming the neighborhood is a chronic problem, according to Penegar. Over the 20 years he's had his hobby, he's lost a number of chickens and filed multiple complaints with the city about his dog woes.
Shooting the dogs seemed like a better solution than calling West Valley's Animal Control, which, he said, doesn't do its job.
"I've complained over and over, and they never do anything," he said, "They keep raising the taxes, and we're paying for them to do nothing."
West Valley Animal Control officials take exception to Penegar's position and say that Chesterfield isn't different from any other West Valley neighborhoods.
"We will come out, but how soon we get there might depend on what's going on," said Layne Morris of the city's zoning enforcement and animal control department. "We have a priority system for responding. Dog bites, dog attacks on people, loose livestock . . . those kinds of things come first. If none of that is going on, it might be a matter of time before we get out there."
And once they do arrive, there might not be anything an Animal Control officer can do, Morris said. In a majority of cases, by the time an officer arrives, the offending animal has left the area, or if the dog is there, it may not be licensed with the city.
"We license about 3,000 dogs annually, but statistically, if we are like other cities our size, we estimate West Valley has something like 75,000 dogs," he said. "We just don't have the manpower."
In fact, the city currently has only one Animal Control officer on duty. A second staffer is out on disability, Morris said. Staff responds to about 4,000 calls annually, but not all of those result in citations, he said.
Dog owners who are cited pay a minimum fine of $25 with increasing fines if the dog has to be impounded by officers.
Still, that doesn't justify vigilante animal control acts like shooting the neighborhood dog, Morris said, noting that the department does have complaints on file from Penegar.
"I understand the frustration, but there are other options," he said.
Staley agrees. She said she "knows of" Penegar but has never spoken to him and has never been told of a previous problem with her dog getting into his yard.
"He doesn't have any right to just go and shoot my dog," she said. "She was part of our family. I want him punished, but I don't think a fine would be sufficient. Not when he just automatically went and got his shotgun."
Penegar feels bad about the incident, he said, although he states clearly that in aiming the gun his intention was to shoot to kill.
"When people have dogs, they usually have kids, and the kids get attached to the dogs, just like I would," Penegar said. "But I'm not going to just keep feeding my chickens to the dogs. And I'm not going to get bit trying to stop them either."
And he is adamant that he was justified in his actions.
"They do have leash laws. And they do have a law that says a man has a right to protect his livestock," he said. "(The dogs) weren't doing it for food. They do it for fun. They were inside my fence and inside the fenced chicken pen, tearing up my animals. It's not like I was running up and down the street shooting dogs."