By Aleksandra Bliszczyk
A Newham woman says her teenage daughter has been left devastated after their two-year-old family dog Jedda was shot and later died from injuries near their home.
Kaye Bye is still in the dark about why her dog was shot and fears it was not an accident because she says no attempt was made to contact her family or to check the healer-kelpie cross’s wellbeing after the shooting.
“It’s just cruel and horrible,” Ms Bye told The Free Press.
“It’s not on in our area, we don’t treat our animals like this. It’s the cruelty – how could somebody do this to an animal?”
Ms Bye was at work while her husband and daughter were home when Jedda was let outside and returned 30 minutes later with a gunshot wound.
“My daughter let her out and half an hour later she found her laying at the back door and she’d been shot by an air rifle,” she said.
“She managed to make it home, which is amazing. They found her on the back step, my husband was home, they rushed her straight over to the Romsey vet, but she’d lost too much blood.
“Because it went on her right side and went in diagonally and got caught in her left rib, so it smashed her ribs on the lefthand side.”
The matter is currently under investigation by Kyneton police, but Ms Bye is concerned for the safety of other pets in the area.
The area is not known to attract hunters.
“You do hear gunshots in the distance, but not in our area. None of us even have guns,” she said.
Ms Bye, who lives on a 10-acre block with chickens and horses, said Jedda was always friendly towards other animals.
She also said it was common for her two dogs and her neighbours’ dogs to play together.
But in a post by Ms Bye’s neighbour Toni on the Lancefield Town Crier Facebook page about the shooting, people were quick to criticise the family for letting their dog roam freely.
“Just someone protecting their livelihood and defenceless lambs from being mauled to a horrible death,” one commented, while others suggested she should keep her pets at home.
Ms Bye said her dogs had been wandering since her fence was damaged by a fallen tree in the June 9 storm.
“There was some pretty nasty stuff because people just assumed she was tracking down lambs and killing them and people are just unreal the way they attack people on Facebook,” Ms Bye said.
“There were a lot of beautiful comments on there, but Toni did that to raise awareness so it wouldn’t happen again, because her dog comes over to our place. All our dogs play.”
Ms Bye said she was worried it could happen to other pets, but hoped if an accident were to occur, the shooter would reach out to the pet owner.
“There’s nothing humane about it,” she said.
“If you accidentally shoot a dog, you go and you track the dog down. I seriously do not understand it.”
