It was a  sad and painful experience this past weekend. One that  no one should ever have to go through, let alone their kids. I returned home Sunday to find our beloved pet chickens, who are cooped up, except when we are out with them to monitor for predators, were brutally killed by a roaming, stray dog!

This dog literally pushed its paw through a locked plexiglass window and made its way INTO the coop. There were signs of a struggle inside. Outside, was the heartbreaking results of someone who was irresponsible and didn't keep their dog in their home, as any beloved pet should be.

A long, further painful lesson was learned when police were called that there's very little they could do in such an instance except to call for the local Animal Control Officer, who evidently takes weekends off and doesn't respond to messages.

As a result, the onus was on us to corral this dog when it came back (which indeed it did!) and bring it to a shelter to see if the dog was chipped and could be returned to its owner.

Police said the alternative was to simply leave the dog roaming and "hope" that it would come back and that when Animal Control returned on Monday he/she would be able to locate, and presumably reprimand the owner.

The dog was a husky, clearly someone's pet, not vicious or any threat to people. During our experience we learned from neighbors that the dog had been seen NUMEROUS times in our neighborhood. Most recently, on someone's patio at night several times over the past few days. Someone admitted the dog was seen last Fall in our yard. They recalled it, because it had a "wolflike appearance."

Yesterday, the shelter said it had located the owner. The owner expressed remorse for what happened and said it's the "first time the dog had escaped from her outdoor run."

She offered to pay for the chickens, which is not what I want. I want the threat of this dog to my pets and other people's pets removed PERMANENTLY.

She was surprised to learn that we were aware that this clearly wasn't the first time and this is a chronic problem.

Will this be a lesson learned for the woman involved?

That remains to be seen.