An Atlanta neighborhood group has put out an alert to residents after a pair of "wild" dogs reportedly attacked and killed someone's backyard chickens, Channel 2 Action News reports.
The suspects in the attack are a female German shepherd that walks with a limp, and a skinny male Rottweiler mix, according to the Grant Park Neighborhood Association. The dogs attacked and killed a flock of chickens on Grant Street on Oct. 8.
"They've been returning to haunt other coops. They're a menace to pets and people," the association says on its website. "A neighbor on Cherokee Place observed the shepherd climbing a 3-foot fence separating her yard from a Milledge Street yard on Oct. 17."
Grant Park resident Kristy Smith told Channel 2 that she’s concerned for the chickens, turkeys and goats she keeps in her back yard. Her animals, she said, “would be a prime thing they would go after.”
She said she has seen loose dogs in the area and has wondered if they were pets abandoned by people who lost their homes to foreclosures. She said residents should "keep an eye out, call animal control because you don't want to have animals just roaming around."
Tony Phillips, spokesman for Fulton County Animal Services, said in a phone interview with the AJC that officers responded to the Oct. 8 incident and returned several times in the following week but were unable to find the canines.
“What we’re doing now is contacting residents where the incident happened and possibly use traps to capture animals involved,” Phillips said.
He hesitated to call the dogs “wild,” saying they could be former pets that went feral -- “they’re a little more wily than the typical domesticated dog” – or animals that got out of their yards, “dogs with some connection to some property in the neighborhood but not being kept in a responsible manner.”
Phillips urged anyone who sees dogs running loose to call Fulton Animal Services at 404-613-0358.
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