UPDATE: 3 P.M.
PORT ANGELES — After careful evaluation of pictures he took with his cell phone, Jeff Thayer said today that Oreo is not the dog who killed his dog Ringo on Wednesday.
Oreo, who Port Angeles Police officers picked up a block from Thayer’s house on the 1800 block of West Seventh Street on Sunday, was still at the Olympic Peninsula Humane Society this afternoon, but his owner Stacey Wall said police had told her she would be contacted soon to take him home.
“It is such a coincidence that there was a big black and white dog that got into our yard on Sunday just like the big black and white dog that came on Wednesday and got Ringo,” Thayer said.
“But the more I looked at the pictures, and the more my wife looked at them the more we realized that it wasn’t the right dog.
“It is a little scary because that means that the one that did get our dog is still out there.”
Wall, who lives on West Sixth Street, said that she was glad to see Oreo’s name cleared in that instance.
“My dog is not vicious — I didn’t think there was any way he would have killed that other dog,” she said.
She said she didn’t know how Oreo had escaped on Sunday, but that she would look into it.
“I was shocked and so upset when they came [Sunday] and said he did that,” Wall said.
“I’m so relieved.”
EARLIER REPORT:
PORT ANGELES — A black-and-white dog named Oreo is in custody at the Humane Society pending an investigation into the killing of a smaller dog last Wednesday.
Police took Oreo into custody Sunday afternoon after Jeff Thayer, the owner of a dog that was killed, reported Oreo in his yard again.
About noon, Thayer called police, saying that the black and white dog had entered his yard by leaping over a 6-foot fence.
By the time Port Angeles Police officers arrived, Oreo was sitting across the street.
Although he didn’t attack, Oreo growled at the officer before running to the next block.
Officers Trevor Dropp and Erik Smith retrieved Oreo from his owner, who was at a home on the 1800 block of West Sixth Street.
The officers and Oreo’s owner, Stacey Wall, took him to the Humane Society, Dropp said.
“This is still under investigation,” Dropp said.
“We are not sure what we will do about it.”
Thayer had reported that a dog that looked like a pit bull-boxer mix leaped over his 6-foot fence early last Wednesday morning and killed one of his two Pekingese pomeranians, Ringo and Elby.
Ringo died defending Elby, who was unharmed, Thayer said.
“I was worried about our other animals and about us, but I was mostly worried about the kids at Hamilton,” Thayer said.
Hamilton Elementary School is less than a block from Thayer’s home on the 1800 block of East Seventh Street.
There was no phone number listed for Wall, and no one answered the door of the home where she was on Sunday afternoon.
Port Angeles police handle animal control within the city limits.
Police Sgt. Tyler Peninger has said that a dog death by another dog is an unusual call.
Peninger said that, while officers are accustomed to investigating an occasional dog bite or fight, he doesn’t remember the last time the department received a report of a dog killing another dog.
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to call the Port Angeles Police Department at 360-452-4545.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
