(MN) Woman shoots Rottweilers after they attack llamas 10-29-03
Date: Nov 2, 2003 4:51 AM

http://startribune.com/stories/462/4180280.html

Woman shoots Rottweilers after they attack llamas
Associated Press

Published October 29, 2003
ROTT30

EVANSVILLE, Minn. – When Kim Fedje went to check on her livestock
she didn’t fully load her rifle because she didn’t think she’d need it.
She was wrong.

Fedje was getting ready for work earlier this month when she heard dogs
barking on her western Minnesota property. Her fiance told her to take
the .22 when she checked on the farm animals.

“I only put in about 10 shells but am not sure because I wasn’t counting
and didn’t expect anything to be wrong,” Kim said.

Fedje first checked the animals in the barn, then headed to the pasture
shared with her neighbors. There, she said, she saw her neighbor’s herd
of llamas clustered in a tight circle. Llamas only stand in such a
circle to fight off predators, Fedje said.

“I yelled, ‘Here, llamas!’,” she said.

Instead of llamas, she got big dogs – a pair of charging Rottweilers.

“I thought ‘Run!’ and at the same time knew that if I ran I would be
dead,” Fedje said. “I aimed my .22 and started firing.”

The first three rounds missed. The next killed one dog at about 20 feet.
The next, her last round, wounded the other dog.

Her fiance reloaded the rifle, found the wounded dog and killed it.

With the dogs no longer a threat, they checked the llama herd. All 13
animals had been attacked; nine required stitches, and one had a
hamstring ripped out, Fedje said.

“The whole herd is ruined,” said Joni Neal, owner of the llamas.

Douglas County prosecutors referred the investigation to Alexandria city
prosecutors because one of the owners of the dogs is a department head
with the county. That owner, Paula Carpenter, director of the land and
resource management office, did not immediately return a telephone call
seeking comment from The Associated Press.