Cop Shop Blog

Alleged chicken-thieving dog (or worse) ruffles feathers in rural GA neighborhood

Feathers were everywhere and the chickens were gone. So began the mystery of a poultry disappearance the evening of March 13 near High Falls.

It seems a man who lives on Big Buck Trail arrived home and discovered two of his chickens missing. The only evidence of their apparently eventful departure was the aforementioned feathers.

The owner of the absent birds, a 26-year-old man, alerted the local sheriff’s office and a Monroe County deputy soon arrived. The man informed the deputy that the chickens are worth about $200 each, according to the deputy’s write-up, and that a neighbor had seen another neighbor’s dog “get” the chickens.

The witness later told the deputy a similar story. Yes, the witness said, he had seen the dog, which goes by the name Buddy — breed unknown — chase one of the chickens into his driveway “and break its neck.”

The deputy further mentioned in the report that the deputy went to the spot where the chicken had been plucked and noticed that in fact “there was a lot of feathers.”

The deputy then spoke to Buddy’s owner, who said the dog has “gotten out” in the past but that he didn’t think it was Buddy who “got the chickens.”

The deputy asked to see Buddy and, in an investigative stroke, noticed the dog appeared freshly washed “as if he was just cleaned” and perhaps too tidy for an outside dog.

Buddy’s owner was cited for violating the county’s leash law and told to keep Buddy from running loose.

Dispatches: A man who was riding in a car that was pulled over for having the wrong license plate on it began breathing heavily and avoided eye contact with a Monroe sheriff’s deputy. The man, 54, of Forsyth, told the deputy that his name was “Tom Smith,” which the deputy doubted, and rightly so. It wasn’t his name or even close. After the man allegedly tried to run away along Johnstonville Road, the deputy caught him and, according to a report, found a small bag of weed in his pocket. . . . A 22-year-old Atlanta woman who was stopped for failing to maintain her lane on Interstate 75 near Forsyth was later found to allegedly have $2,238 cash, hallucinogenic mushrooms and 100 cartridges of THC oil in her Chevy Malibu. When asked by a sheriff’s deputy why she had so much THC oil, the woman reportedly said, “I smoke a lot.” She was jailed on drug-trafficking charges.

Joe Kovac Jr.
The Telegraph
Joe Kovac Jr. writes about local news and features for The Telegraph, with an eye for human-interest stories. Joe is a Warner Robins native and graduate of Warner Robins High. He joined the Telegraph in 1991 after graduating from the University of Georgia. As a Pulliam Fellowship recipient in 1991, Joe worked for the Indianapolis News. His stories have appeared in the Washington Post, the Seattle Times and Atlanta Magazine. He has been a Livingston Award finalist and won numerous Georgia Press Association and Georgia Associated Press awards.
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