Neighbor's dogs kill family livestock

KATHLEEN (FOX 13) - A Polk County family is having a hard time sleeping at night after its livestock has been attacked and killed.

“So we’re just living night to night and just hoping that the animals are alive when we get up in the morning,” Melissa Nichols told FOX 13.

The most recent incident happened over the weekend. On Saturday, they heard dogs outside near the barn.

When Nichols 12-year-old daughter went out to see what was going on, she saw her prize calf, which she was bottle raising, dead and bloody.

Nichols says when the dogs surrounding the calf started to move aggressively towards her daughter, the girl took off running. The dogs began chasing her.

Nichols grabbed a gun. She shot and killed 2 of the dogs. One of them was wearing a collar imprinted with the name Hayden Davis on it, a neighbor.

“It shouldn’t have come to this,” said Nichols. “The dogs should have been gone.”

Nichols blames Davis’s dog for killing a steer and a cow in the past, as well as injuring at least one of her other cattle.

A spokeswoman for the Polk Sheriff’s Office, Carrie Horstman says Davis has been cited five times in the last two years for a allowing his dogs to wander.

“We hate that she was put in this position,” said Horstman. “It is a horrific thing to kill an animal, but she is within her right to do this.”

Davis was just cited again for this recent incident.

Horstman says he could end up paying up to $2,000 in fines. She also says a vicious dog investigation has been launched which could result in criminal charges.

Davis refused to talk to FOX 13 for this story.