By Shabna Ullah
Residents of Bush Lot, West Berbice are still in shock after witnessing a group of men brutally butchering about ten dogs in the area around midday on Sunday. They said the men claimed that the dogs had killed their sheep.
This newspaper was told that about 12 men, armed with cutlasses, sticks and ropes, went on a rampage in a section of the village. They hunted down and hacked off the heads of all the dogs they found.
Reports are that they even went into a few yards, chased the dogs out and killed them while their owners looked on helplessly. The irate men then dumped the mutilated dogs in a nearby trench.
According to residents, the men beat the dogs with sticks and used the ropes to lasso them when they tried to run away. They said in some of the killings, one man held the dogs while another chopped their heads off completely.
A woman told this newspaper she watched heartsick as the men fired chops at a pregnant dog but it apparently escaped death by hiding in some bushes. She said she was not aware of what became of the dog until the next morning when she noticed that its foot was almost severed.
As the men fired a chop at one of the dogs, its ear was completely severed and it attempted to escape. But the men ran after it and continued to butcher it.
Another woman said after she saw the men killing other dogs she ran and hid her own little dog, “and when dem ask me if me gat any dog me tell them no.”
One man said that the dog killers barged into his yard and were about to chop his dog and after he realized how determined they were, he told them not to kill it in the yard. Asked why he did not try to stop them, the man responded, “because they had the cutlass and if me din let them kill the dog they woulda kill me instead.”
According to reports, the men threatened to chop another resident when he tried to prevent them from killing his dog.
The residents said that when they inquired from the men why they were killing the dogs they replied that the dogs killed 11 sheep belonging to them last week while they were grazing in the backlands. They told this newspaper that they were sorry to hear that the sheep were killed but said the men were not even sure whose dogs killed the sheep. “They just come in the area and killed the dogs wild-west,” a resident said. “If dem know that dogs killing dem sheep then dey shouldn’t leave them alone in the backdam, dey should stay there all day and watch dem. And even if dey see any dog trying to attack the sheep dey should follow it to see where it going and go to the owner or report it to the police. What dem do there is cruelty and dem would punish for it.”
The man recalled that two years ago the men went into the area and killed a few dogs, including three belonging to him. He said too that just after that incident “one of the men break he hand and foot in an accident… and yet they come back to kill dem dumb animals…” He said this time his dogs ran away and hid.
Some of the residents mentioned that they also reared livestock and that the dogs did not kill them “so how they gon go and kill dem sheep so far. We don’t know if stray dogs killing the sheep but they don’t even have right to treat stray dogs like that…”
They told this newspaper sadly that their dogs would keep watch during the nights and would bark when strange persons entered the area.
But on Sunday night there was silence. There were hardly any dogs around to bark. “Now we gon be afraid to sleep. When the dogs around and they bark we used to peep out…,” a woman remarked.
This newspaper was unable to speak to the men involved in killing the dogs. Residents said that they were so confused they did not even think of calling the police and after the incident they still did not make an effort to go to the station to make a report.
