“My daughter and I walked outside together and we looked over at the pen like we always do, and she first noticed the dogs,” Pennington said. “She saw them and she knew that wasn’t right, because they should not have been in there.”
The next thing Tiffany saw was the family’s pregnant pet nanny goat, lying dead. That animal, along with nine chickens and a second goat, Tiffany, who had been raised by bottle feeding since infancy, had been mutilated, apparently by the two dogs remaining in the pen. A fatally injured duck was also later discovered. Only one duck survived the attack.
“She just became hysterical,” Pennington said of her daughter. Pike County has no animal control department, so the only option Pennington had was to call 911 and request assistance from the Pike County Sheriff’s Office.
Upon arrival, the deputy explained to Pennington that while the law allowed her to shoot the dogs, he was unable to do so.
Pennington said the only firearm she and her husband, Scott, possess is a rifle passed down to him by his grandfather, and it is not a functioning weapon. She was finally able to secure the assistance of a family friend, who killed the dogs and helped dispose of the dead animals’ bodies.
Pennington said she had never before seen the dogs that killed her family’s livestock and has no idea who the owners may be. Although the dogs can no longer harm her family, she said that brings no comfort to Tiffany.
“The whole reason we moved to Pike County was for my daughter to have her animals, but that’s all gone. I know she’ll come back around, but right now, she is scared to even go outside. I know it’s going to take time, but she won’t even leave my side,” Pennington said.
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