GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic Feliciano Benitez pulls on gloves before hauling away Marshia Crook's dead sheep on Monday, May 19. The two sheep were mauled by a neighbor's dog, she says. The dog has killed livestock before at her Wapato-area home, says Crook. Besides losing the livestock, Crook fears for her foster daughter's safety as she waits for the school bus. Links   E-mail             Print            Advertisement

WAPATO -- Marshia Crook said she will lie in wait with a rifle for the return of a dog that killed her foster daughter's sheep and lamb Monday morning.

"I know for a fact that it will be back," she said. "Every time it has killed my animals before, it has come back in a day or two."

She waited Monday morning with her frightened 10-year-old foster daughter for the school bus to arrive shortly after the
marauding dog had killed the two animals.

It's the second vicious attack this year in the Lower Valley, where roaming dogs have been a long-standing problem.

Lew Yallup, 55, was attacked in January by a pack of dogs while he was picking up aluminum cans along Knight Lane, south of town. He now walks with the help of a leg brace that extends from ankle to knee.

In the latest incident, Crook said, her husband was leaving for work about 6:30 a.m. Monday when he spotted the downed animals and a Rottweiler fleeing their pasture in the 300 block of Ashue Road.

Later, a neighbor said he shot a pit bull mix that attacked his chickens the same morning along with the Rottweiler and at least one other dog, she said.

Crook said she had raised the sheep and its lamb, and that they were her foster daughter's pets.

"She was just devastated," Crook said. "Now, she's afraid to wait at the bus stop, and I don't blame her."

The sheep had its throat ripped out. The lamb's neck and head had been badly torn up, and Crook said she had to shoot it to end its suffering.

Her goat could not be found. Crook said she thinks the dogs dragged it away.

She said she believes the dogs are owned by a neighbor a few blocks away.

In November, she shot and killed three of the neighbor's dogs after they came into her yard and killed three chickens, two ducks and four turkeys. But the Rottweiler escaped, she said.

More than a year ago, the same dogs killed one of her goats.

She said she's complained to the Yakima County Sheriff's Office, but was told to buy a bigger gun. Deputies did not immediately return calls seeking further comment.

Crook said county authorities told her they had no authority over the dog owner because he is a Yakama tribal member living on tribal land. However, she is allowed to shoot the dogs if they come onto her private property.

"I'm not being discriminative," she said. "I'm going to shoot any dog that comes into my pasture."

Crook said Yakama tribal police told her that the offense involving livestock was only a civil infraction, and that they could only order the owner to destroy the dog if a person was attacked.

They said she could take the matter to tribal court, but that would cost her money for an attorney and no guarantee that the dogs would be destroyed, she said.

"It's aggravating because it leaves livestock owners like us to have to wait until they come in our yards," she said.

She fears the dogs may go after small children in the area now that all her animals are dead.

"It's a horrible thought," she said. "You have to wait till a kid gets mangled or something before they can do something about a viscous dog."

* Phil Ferolito can be reached at 577-7749 or pferolito@yakimaherald.com.