Salisbury man reportedly shoots neighbor’s dog for killing his duck but doesn’t tell the owner

Salisbury police are now investigating the death of a dog and a duck after a sad and strange series of events that happened last week.

According to WCVB-TV, one neighbor’s dog got out and killed another neighbor’s duck. The neighbor reacted by shooting the dog, but then denied shooting the dog for days.

It all started when Emily Meatty’s young daughter accidentally let the family’s two dogs out, the news channel said. The dogs ran to a nearby home where the homeowner keeps ducks.

Meatty told WCVB that she heard a gunshot. Then, one of the dogs came back and the other didn’t.

Meattey told the news channel that her family spent days looking for the dog because, at first, the neighbor denied killing the dog.

“It’s not more or less that they shot her because that’s very traumatic, but it’s what they did after,” Meattey said to WCVB. “They didn’t do the right steps.”

A man who answered the door at the neighbor’s property spoke off-camera with WCVB, saying that he had previously warned the Meattey family that he would defend the ducks if the dogs came by again.

“We told them, ‘Next time it comes over, you’re not going to get your dog back.’ And then, the next time it came over, it had the duck in its mouth, dead,” he said.

Massachusetts law states that a person may “kill a dog found out of the enclosure of its owner or keeper and not under his immediate care in the act of worrying, wounding or killing persons, livestock or fowls.”

Meattey told WCVB she understands that her neighbor was within his rights to shoot the dog, but that she wishes he’d informed both her and police about the incident.

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