The following article written by Leon Thompson appeared in the Weekend Edition of The St. Albans Messenger, February 9, 2012
More land lost to hunting
Fairfax couple's dog survives shot to chest
By LEON THOMPSON, Special to the Messenger FAIRFAX - Janet Bonneau and her husband, Dana Howard, have lived on 141 wooded acres of property here for 14 years, and let plenty of people hunt on it.
But not anymore. Not after last November.
On the twenty-fifth of the month, Dana was in Albany; N.Y., bringing his son back to college after Thanksgiving break. In Vermont, rifle season was ending - the last day of deer hunting for many.
Janet, at home on Carroll Hill Road, was outside with her three German Shepard dogs: Cesar, 14; Spirit, 5; and Ruger, who had just turned 2. She was waiting for Dana's return from New York and tossing sticks and balls to the dogs near a barn on the 1/4 -acre of cleared property surrounding their home.
Janet went to the woodshed. The dogs were in her sight. All three of them were at the back, screen door when she brought an armload of wood into the house and dropped it by the woodstove. When she turned around 10 seconds later, Ruger was gone.
Janet called Cesar and Spirit inside before she bolted back outside. "Ruuugerrr! Ruuugerrr!"
Nothing.
"I never heard the gun, never heard a single gunshot," Janet said last week, in recounting that day with Dana over coffee in St. Albans. "There must have been a gunshot at the same time 1 dropped the wood. That's all that makes sense to me."
One fact remains: when Ruger limped from the woods and into the house he dripped blood from beneath his left front leg. "At first, I thought he was impaled by stick or barbwire," Janet recalled.
Ruger didn't whimper or cry. Janet phoned Burlington Emergency & Veterinary Services (BEVS), in Williston. "Bring him down right away," a BEVS staffer said.
An X-ray revealed Ruger was shot. The bullet entered his chest from the right, causing a 2.5 to 3.5-centimer wound, and exited under his left front leg. He sustained significant muscle and tissue damage. Had the bullet veered 1 centimeter toward his chest, it would have struck bone and killed him.
"That's the only reason he lived," Dana said.
Dana, a lifelong hunter, along with a Vermont State Police trooper conducted a subsequent investigation that determined the bullet was from a hunting rifle. The trooper and a BEVS surgeon said Ruger was targeted, probably through a scope.
"They confirmed it was a direct shot to kill," Janet said.
The trooper's investigation did not produce solid leads. Janet and Dana are happy with his efforts. "He was really wonderful through all of this," she said ..
Janet and Dana have adjoining properties with their neighbors, spanning about 1,000 acres; most of it is wooded. The houses are about 1,800 feet apart, Dana said, invisible from each other.
Dana said he and his neighbors all get along. None of them had information for him and Janet.
Police followed up with two hunters from outside the area that were on Carroll Hill Road on Nov 25, but their interviews weren't fruitful, Janet and Dana said.
A week later, on Dec. 1, state police cited a Milton man with animal cruelty after he shot a Jericho man's German Shepard during muzzleloader season. The alleged shooter thought the dog was a coyote, police said.
"My idea for mistaken identity is negligence," Dana said.
"If you're looking through a gun scope, and you can't tell the difference between a dog and a coyote," Janet added, "you don't deserve a hunting license."
So who shot Ruger? "Somebody was in there and either saw a dog and thought it was a coyote, or thought the dog was chasing and spooking deer," Dana said.
Ruger lost some chest tissue but has recovered fully. Janet has lost some sense of safety and security, anf, with Dana, about $8,500 in vrt bills for several weeks of surgeries and office visits.
(To recoup some of those costs - but, more importantly, to heal - Janet, a local artist, is selling work on her Web site: www.vermontpleinair.com, in a special section called "Art for Ruger")
"And now people are going to say, 'Well, we've lost another place to hunt,' but posting our land next season," Dana said. "Me, the neighbors. I've already started the process. Nobody's hunting it now."
He wonders why the incident occurred in the first polace. "I can't understand why deer (hunting) brings out the worst in people. It's just a deer."
" Dana knows there is an element that would tell him to keep his dog out of the woods during hunting season.
"But my dog and I are in the woods constantly;" he said. "We have 85 acres directly behind our house. If he can't walk there, where can he walk?"
Originally from Westford, but raised in Highgate, Dana started his hunting career at age 10. He got his first deer at 16 and has bagged more than a dozen since then.
He used to own anywhere from 15 to 20 guns at a time - "I've cut back a little," he said - and is quick to laugh at the irony that the most high-profile hunting accident in the U.S. in recent years was committed by the nation's last vice president, Dick Cheney; who shot a fellow hunter.
"It only takes one to make it look bad for others," Dana said. "People are running out of places to hunt in this state and this (Ruger's shooting) is why. Renegade hunters take advantage. They're irresponsible. It makes me disappointed."
Then how to prevent it?
"I think people really need to think before they pull the trigger," Dana said. "People need to start slowing down and really take responsibility. Because once you pull that trigger, your options are over."
