Breeder and shooter mourn deaths of huskies that attacked a pig

Four Siberian huskies were shot and killed after escaping from a dog breeder’s garage in the South Bay area and attacking a pig.

The May 18 incident has had an emotional impact on everyone involved.

Adrianna Amansec, who runs Skyler’s Siberians at her home, said she heard about a dozen shots after feeding her 10 huskies about lunchtime. She was unaware four of the dogs had quietly run away moments before.

One dog — a male named Tango — returned to the house with a bullet in his bleeding chest.

A neighbor soon alerted Amansec that he had seen the other three dogs on a property a few doors down on South Bay Road. Laying in the grass were Dakota, Peach and new mother Zoe, who had just weaned six puppies.

“I just fell to my knees,” Amansec said. “They were family.”

Dan Rehling said the four dogs hopped a fence and pinned down one of his two 250-pound pigs. He tried to scare away the dogs with a stick. One dog looked back, bared its teeth and growled.

That’s when Rehling said he pulled out his pistol. He squatted, aimed and fired 14 rounds.

“To my broken heart, I had to kill them,” he said. “It was the most intense 15 seconds of my life.”

According to state law, Rehling had the right to kill the dogs to protect his animals. Rehling said the dogs had chewed off the pig’s tail and left gashes all over its body.

Because of the injuries to the pig, both pigs were butchered the day of the incident, about a month ahead of schedule, he said.

“They were killing him. Had I not gone back there, they would have killed the other one,” he said. “Everybody lost here.”

Sgt. Carla Carter of the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office said the pig was barely breathing when a deputy arrived on the scene and that Rehling was “clearly within his legal rights” to shoot the dogs. Neither party is pursuing charges.

Aside from the emotional toll, the deaths mean the loss of “thousands of dollars” for Amansec’s AKC-registered business, where she breeds Siberian huskies with champion bloodlines. The dogs who died, she said, were simply curious and would have never bitten anyone.

She said killing the dogs was unnecessary and that Rehling could have found another way to handle the situation, such as firing warning shots. Had the dogs killed the pig, Amansec said, she would have bought him another one.

“The law is the law,” she said of the shooting. “He just didn’t need to go that far.”

Rehling said he has “cried a thousand tears” while sitting on his deck and replaying the incident in his mind — especially the moment when he feared the pack of huskies would turn away from the pig and attack him instead.

“You have weapons to defend yourself,” he said. “The last thing I would ever want to do is shoot a domestic dog.”

This story was originally published May 24, 2016 at 12:00 PM with the headline "Breeder and shooter mourn deaths of huskies that attacked a pig."