Husky Owner Faces Charges After Dog Kills Nearly 30 Animals In Hours

A husky killed more than two dozen animals in the backyards of at least two homes in a town in Utah over the course of just a few hours on Memorial Day. The owner of the four-year-old dog, Mackenzie Morton, is now facing 28 misdemeanor charges including 27 counts of attacking animals and one count of an animal running at large.

Trip Kiss, who runs a petting zoo with his wife for special needs children, said the dog killed eleven of his animals — two rabbits, two ducks, five chickens, a turkey, and a specially trained goose named Rex. He said the motion sensors at his yard went off in the early morning hours of Monday. Footage from a surveillance camera showed the husky running around his yard with rabbits in her mouth.

Kiss said the husky was targeting his animals and almost made it into the peacock den by tearing a hole in the metal fencing, reported Fox 13. He explained that the husky was chewing the goose that was at the back of the yard and also dug out the "rabbits in their enclosure."

The dog had already killed several of the animals by the time he realized what was happening, kiss said.

"The goose was so friendly, it would follow us around at Renaissance fairs, charities,” he said.

"The dog continued to chew on it, and it died in the dog's mouth, and he dropped it,” Kiss said adding he spotted the dog in the neighborhood with one chicken still alive in his mouth.

Kiss said he was out about $1,200 in damages.

He wasn’t the only owner affected, Tooele Police Sergeant Jeremy Hansen said, reported Fox 59.

He said "a second lady from a couple houses down came and told the officers that 15 of her chickens had also been killed by the same animal." It took them a couple of hours to bring her to the shelter to contact the owner.

The dog’s owner Mackenzie Morton told Fox13 that when she was at her boyfriend's house in Tooele, the husky, named Nikita, escaped for just a few hours.

“I didn't know where she went, because it was dark at night," Morton said, reported Buzzfeed News. “Honestly, I was just so much in shock, because that's not her. She doesn't do that kind of stuff."

"I feel anger toward the owner, because she could have prevented this," Kiss said.

The Tooele Police will now decide whether to send the dog back to the owner, give to a rescue, or euthanize her.

"If it's deemed dangerous, it has to be euthanized," Sergeant Jeremy Hansen said.

"I don't want it euthanized. I don't hold any ill intent to the dog," Kiss said.

Kiss also said he would prefer the dog ending up at a rescue and not be given back to the owner.

"Morton should NEVER get her dog back under any circumstances; she has already proven to be negligent with the dog," Kiss said expressing his anger on Facebook.