They were once bred as hunting dogs. Two poodles recently killed deer in the canton of Zurich. The owners were punished differently.
Poodles – pictured is a Miniature Poodle – were originally bred as hunting dogs.
If dogs kill deer, the owners are liable for it. However, the penal consequences are very different, as two current penal orders from the public prosecutor’s office in Winterthur/Unterland show. Both penal orders are final. In both cases, poodles or poodle mixes were the culprits. The breed was originally bred as retrieving hunting dogs. What consequences the incidents had for the biting dogs is not mentioned in the penal orders.
The first case occurred in November 2021 in Neftenbach. A 45-year-old dog owner was walking her poodle mix beside an open field at the edge of a forest at 11 a.m. She let her dog run off the leash. The four-legged friend spotted a deer in the field and immediately started chasing it. He caught the deer and injured it so badly that – according to the penalty order – it had to be put out of its suffering.
breach of duty of supervision
In legal terms, it sounds like this: The accused violated their statutory obligation under §9 of the cantonal dog law, according to which they must lead and supervise their dog at all times in such a way that it does not endanger or bother people or animals or interfere with the safe use of the dog freely accessible space affected. In the vicinity of the open field and the edge of the forest, the woman always had to expect deer, rabbits or birds to be there. The dog owner should have given the dog the necessary attention to keep him on his feet or to be able to retrieve him. But she was deep in a conversation with a colleague.
It was foreseeable for her that there would be a deer in this rural area of forests and trees and that her dog, as a hunting dog typical of the breed, could track down and bite a wild animal. The woman was found guilty of negligent animal cruelty and violating the canton’s dog law and was fined 15 daily rates of 40 francs (600 francs) each for a probationary period of two years and a fine of 200 francs. She also has to pay CHF 800 in fees and procedural costs.
Watch out, dog owners: Deer are also seen time and time again on the Üetliberg.
carelessness of the keeper
A 76-year-old pensioner did not get off quite so lightly, whose king poodle bit a fawn to death in Winkel in June 2020. In addition to the negligent offense against the Animal Protection Act and the negligent violation of the Dog Act, she was – in contrast to the first owner – also found guilty of the negligent violation of the federal law on hunting and the protection of wild mammals and birds.
She was punished with a conditional fine of 30 daily rates of CHF 100 (CHF 3,000) and a fine of CHF 1,500. Here, the preliminary procedure was more complex and cost the dog owner an additional 2,500 francs. Why is not in the penalty order. Theoretically, a DNA profile can be created to identify the animal responsible.
The woman also walked with a colleague and her two dogs in the morning through partly wooded, partly open terrain. According to the penalty order, she let her dog run off the leash and chatted with her companion, not giving her four-legged friend the attention she needed to be able to call him back at any time. He ran into a sugar beet field. The owner lost visual contact with him. He also stopped responding to calls.
In the field he found a fawn a few weeks old lying on the ground. He bit the cub several times in the neck, in the front lobes (shoulders) and thighs. The fawn was badly injured, was barely breathing and had to be killed by the game warden. The penalty order states that it was foreseeable for the accused that her king poodle “as a breed-typical former hunting dog” would be happy to move, confidently on its own and without control and could track down and bite a defenseless fawn.