Cat Owner Turns To DNA To Implicate Dog

Cat Owner Turns To DNA To Implicate Dog

POSTED: 5:12 pm EST January 9, 2006
UPDATED: 5:15 pm EST January 9, 2006

LEESBURG, Va. -- When Loudoun County officials dropped the case of Lucky the dog killing Cody the cat, Cody's owner took a cue from television's legal dramas: she hired a laboratory to analyze DNA evidence she collected from her neighbors' pet to proved he was the killer.

After discovering Cody's body under a tree in front of her home in August, Marylin Christian set out to find the killer. She went to Lucky's owners, neighbors Sean and Janet Daryabeygi, who consented to giving her samples of Lucky's saliva and fur.

A lab in California confirmed Christian's suspicions.

Christian said that since Cody was killed, she has repeatedly asked Lucky's owners to return the dog to the local animal shelter, where they adopted him in the summer. The Daryabeygis think she's asking too much. They said Lucky would never harm a human, though they don't dispute that the German shepherd mix could have been a cat killer.

"It's the nature of the dog -- chasing cats, squirrels and small animals," said Sean Daryabeygi, who said his neighbor "is obsessed with something natural."

http://www.local6.com/news/5958073/detail.html

and mauled her cat, she must bear the greatest blame for her cat's death.. Inside cats live long lives, outside cats do not (usually)

Most communities have leash laws. Lucky and his owners must bear the greatest blame. Hindsight does not lessen a citizen's obligations under the law.

if the cat was an inside cat, it would probably still be alive :cry:

See how far you get.

FWIW, I can't even get a frickin' collar on my cat, let alone a leash.

You'd be surprised how many escaped indoor cats get injured or killed.

...is that those people are letting their pets run loose. They should pay restitution for the cat, though.

Frankly, the dog owners attitude amazes me.

I'm not suggesting that dogs should be allowed to run loose, they should not. But cats running loose are a big nuisance. Our neighbors cat caused me to break a finger. It defecates in our yard. It teases my dogs.

And last time I tried sprayed the cat with water to keep it out of our yard the elderly woman who owns the evil gray creature accused me of cat abuse.

She does so in back yard (She is a Jack Russell). We keep her in mostly unless we can be out watching her. Working on getting a 6' fence this spring...

Good luck. You are smart to watch her.

neither creature should be out and unattended and leashed.

Are your dogs "evil" for barking?

It's become evil in my mind. Can't help it. That really hurt and the finger is permanently slightly crooked unless I have surgery.

But you are right, the cat is not evil -- THE OWNER IS for allowing it to run loose.

My mother used to put her cats out on light long leashes in the back yard -- or later on in an enclosed patio. That seems appropriate. Running loose -- not appropriate.

And frankly, the only thing my dogs bark at while in the yard is that GD cat.

just like we have to do for dogs. Here in Sacramento it would have a major impact on Animal Control. The haven't had a funding increase in eons and the system is the shits. All because the cat owners whine to the Board of Supes each time it comes up.

I've had my cats killed by dogs. There's no leash law when I live. The cops have told me that cats are considered "domestic animals" like cows and chickens. A farmer has the RIGHT to kill a dog chasing his "domestic animals" and so do cat owners.

... it to run loose. Without demonstrating an effort to safeguard and protect the animal, no value can be shown. Furthermore, it's against the law in Virgina to allow animals to run loose. It's called "animal control" - not just "dog control." (I'd be interested to know if the cat was licensed as the law also requires. Cats are notoriously unlicensed.

but the hatred they bear dogs and dog owners. The cities in the Puget Sound area of Washington state have probably the harshest anti-dog ordinances in the U.S. (there are many parks from which even leashed dogs are banned) yet cats are allowed to run amok killing song birds and other endangered wildlife willy-nilly just as their implacably savage whimsy decrees. Moreover the cat lobby in Washington state -- obscenely rich and therefore infinitely powerful -- pressured the legislature several years ago into naming feral cats a protected species so now it is illegal to exterminate them, never mind the fact feral cats are a huge disruption in the balance of nature by killing more song birds (and other forms of wildlife) than all other predators AND environmental factors (insecticides etc.) combined. Indeed I agree completely with the growing number of environmentalists who maintain that anyone who lets a domestic cat run loose outside and claims to be environmentally sensitive is either in denial as to what a cat really is or is simply a hypocrite.

An unabashed dog lover -- I frankly regard dogs as the embodiment of the unconditional love Christians believe is exclusively divine -- I also admit I dislike cats and profoundly so: I was viciously attacked by a very large cat -- without any provocation whatsoever -- when I was a small child. My parents were visiting friends who owned the cat, I was napping in a bedroom and I awoke to the unspeakable horror of the cat clawing my face, biting my eyes and flailing my chest and stomach with its hind-claws. I was 3 (or maybe just 4) and had the scars for years, though most eventually disappeared -- but 61 years later I still have the bite-scar above my right eye.

would its owners just shrug and say "Cats kill mice, dogs kill cats, coyotes kill dogs"? i doubt it. they would want to find the animal and "take care of it"