Owner on the Hook After Her Husky's 'Killing Spree'

A Utah woman is facing nearly 30 misdemeanor counts after her 4-year-old husky went on an animal "killing spree." Mackenzie Morton says she found a few dead chickens in a neighbor's yard in Tooele after her dog went missing from her boyfriend's house after dark on Memorial Day. But rather than wake the neighbors in a search, Morton left the house door open, hoping the dog would slip back inside. Nikita didn't return, and as Morton later learned, the neighbors were already up. Trip Kiss, who operates a petting zoo for kids with disabilities, had spotted the husky chewing on some of his animals, left scattered across a 2-block radius. In all, the dog attacked "two rabbits, two ducks, five chickens, a turkey, [and] a goose," Kiss tells Fox 13, while police say another neighbor reported the loss of more than a dozen chickens.

"I didn't think she was going to go on a killing spree," says Morton, who's vowed to pay $1,350 in damages. She just "doesn't do that kind of stuff," she tells BuzzFeed. Still, Morton is facing one charge of an animal running at large and 27 misdemeanor counts for each animal attacked by the dog, captured hours later and taken to an animal shelter. Police will decide if Nikita should be released back into Morton's care, taken to a rescue, or euthanized, Fox 13 reports. Despite the loss of a specially trained goose "so friendly … it would follow us around," Kiss doesn't think the dog should be killed since Morton is the one who "could have prevented this" (in a Facebook comment, he also suggests there might have been an intentional angle to all this). But Morton shouldn't get the dog back, according to Kiss' wife. "She has already proven to be negligent." (More Utah stories.)