BUTLER COUNTY, Ohio -- The owner of dogs that attacked miniature horses in St. Clair Township pleaded guilty Tuesday to failure to restrain the canines, the Journal-News reports.
Terry Foister entered his guilty plea to a minor misdemeanor in Hamilton Municipal Court. Judge Dan Gattermeyer fined him $150.
Foister didn't know the dogs were leaving his property last month, Butler County Deputy Dog Warden Supervisor Kurt Merbs said. After Foister found out about the attacks, he put them down.
At Mike Powell’s farm, a trio of dogs attacked and killed one horse and mortally maimed another Dec. 16.
Eight-year-old Bella and 6-year-old Pablo were “ripped to pieces," Powell told WCPO.
Powell said he shot and killed one of the dogs. The remaining two dogs, one still stained with blood, attacked another miniature horse at a neighboring residence.
“They went after his face and his tail. Just tore him up,” Howard Campbell told the Journal-News about the attack on his miniature horse, Simon.
“I was at work, my wife was out there. She was throwing rocks at (the dogs) trying to get them off (the horse).”
A veterinarian came to the aid of Simon, sewing him up, but it soon was apparent the 16-year-old horse would not make it, according to Campbell.
“I was out there all night trying to get him up, working with him,” he said. Eventually, he said he called the veterinarian to end Simon’s suffering.
Merbs said sheriff’s office detectives questioned Foister, and he confessed the animals belonged to him.
Campbell said the dogs were bred for “hunting or fighting.”
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The Journal-News is a media partner of WCPO.
