Hunters Charged for Shooting Pet Dogs from Treestand

Father and son John and Hayden Lowe were charged late last month with several counts of animal cruelty and obstruction of justice after allegedly shooting two pet dogs while hunting from treestands on private land in LaPorte, Indiana, then attempting to cover up the crime.

On Saturday, October 21st, the owner of the two dogs–a beagle named Josie and a chocolate lab named Bear–noticed that the beagle’s GPS collar had stopped sending signals. She went to the collar’s last recorded location on the property next to hers and found Josie’s body. The dog had been killed by an arrow. According to the charging documents filed by the LaPorte County prosecutor, the police later determined that the entrance wound of the arrow was high up on the dog’s body, indicating that it had been shot from above.

Trying to find out more, the dog’s owner contacted another hunter in the area after seeing his social media posts, and the police interviewed this hunter to investigate further. He had been in a nearby treestand that morning and had seen the dogs heading into the property. He heard the dogs moving through the forest before they yelped in distress and fell silent. Critically, this witness never heard the animals bark.

Climbing down from the stand to investigate, the hunter then found 58-year-old John Lowe, along with his 22-year-old son Hayden, who was dragging a chocolate lab down a fire lane between the properties. John said the dogs had charged Hayden aggressively, causing John to kill them, and now the pair were looking for a place to discard the dog. However, John Lowe also asked the other hunter not to tell anyone, adding that he, quote, “took care of a problem for both of us.”

It’s not hard to read between the lines here. Of course, no hunter is glad to see dogs making a ruckus near their spot in the deer woods, but to kill those dogs is downright diabolical.

The Lowes then dragged both dogs to a separate property, hiding them in the woods, and proceeded to destroy Josie’s GPS collar. The Lowes appear to be many things, but criminal masterminds, they are not.

Police soon interviewed John Lowe, and his statement was full of contradictions: he said the dogs had charged him, not his son (as he had claimed to the hunter witness). He said the dogs had been barking and snapping aggressively, even though the witness heard no barking. He couldn’t explain why he hadn’t contacted the police or animal control about the aggressive dogs, or how the dogs could have threatened him and his son while they were up in tree stands. He said he wasn’t motivated to kill the dogs to prevent them from scaring deer away, but he did admit to dragging the bodies off the property to conceal them.

Neither of the Lowes have a prior history of criminal activity or hunting violations, and their trial is set to start on January 14th of next year.

MeatEater spoke with Captain Derek Allen of the LaPorte County Sheriff’s Office, who said the incident had deeply dismayed the tight-knit community. “I had a coach at a youth athletic event approach me twice in two weeks to express his ongoing shock.” He went on to say that hunters and other participants in the outdoors, like farmers and dog walkers in the area, typically have respect for and trust in each other.

On top of the cruelty of the crime is the absolute gift this kind of thing is for anti-hunters. Shooting dogs from treestands is exactly the kind of cartoon-villain behavior that gives hunters a bad name with the general public, and animal rights groups work hard to convince the world that all hunters are this cruel.

So if you’ve had success in the deer woods this season and are inviting your non-hunting friends over for some venison diplomacy, maybe invite a few more people. That way, we can do all we can to counteract the influence of the Lowes and hunters like them.

Feature image via La Porte County Sheriff's Office Facebook.

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