Hunter won’t face charges for killing dog in Berks County

A rifle shot rang out in the Berks County woods Saturday morning, hitting a dog in the gut and sending its owner on a bloody sprint for help.

“Who shot my dog?” Chris Heller yelled out.

Hunter, an 8-year-old malamute mix that had been adopted from a New Jersey sanctuary six months earlier, died before Heller got to the veterinarian. The Pennsylvania Game Commission said the Jan. 7 shooting was a case of mistaken identity — that the deer hunter who killed the dog thought it was a coyote. The Hellers have called for the hunter to lose his license or take additional training, but the Game Commission told The Inquirer “no game law violations were detected.”

The Hellers are also waiting for an apology.

“This was a family pet,” Jennifer Heller told The Inquirer on Thursday. “It wasn’t a wild animal. He was loved and taken care of. We called him ‘the cheese man’ because he loved dairy products. We used to bribe him with cheese.”

The Hellers, of Richmond Township, Berks County, adopted Hunter from Howling Woods Farm in Jackson Township, N.J., in the summer after visiting him there several times. The nonprofit farm, according to its website, aims to educate the public about “wolves and wolfdogs.”

On Saturday, Chris Heller took Hunter and Freya, a 4-year-old German shepherd mix, for a walk near their home on trails owned by the Reading Area Water Authority. Both dogs were wearing colored harnesses and collars, the Hellers said. Chris Heller said he encountered deer hunters there and told them he and the dogs would be out of their way in a few minutes. The hunters, according to the Hellers, said they would alert their party that dogs were around — but it seems one didn’t get that message.

There are no posted leash laws in the area, according to Jennifer Heller, and Hunter was hit while on the marked trail.

Once Hunter was shot, Chris Heller said, he scooped the dog up and ran 100 yards. The hunters emerged to help him too, including the shooter.

Hunter, the Hellers said, weighed approximately 88 pounds, more than double the size of a big Eastern coyote. Hunter’s weight and the bright harness he was wearing, should have made the shooter pause, they said. While the dog had wolflike features, wolves haven’t lived in Pennsylvania for more than a century.

Coyotes, according to the Game Commission, can be killed “24 hours a day, 7 days a week.” January and February is the peak coyote hunting in the state, with weekend “roundup” competitions across the state. Many states have banned the contests and some biologists believe the mass killing of coyotes, often seen as a pest by farmers and deer hunters, only drives the survivors to produce larger litters.

“The coyote is by far the most persecuted predator in North America,” Camilla H. Fox, founder of Project Coyote in California, told The Inquirer in 2021.

Dogs are occasionally mistaken for coyotes and wolves and killed by hunters all over the country. Last year, a woman in Montana shot, killed, and skinned a 6-month-old husky, posting photos of her kill online before people began pointing out it wasn’t a wolf. Another husky was mistaken for a coyote in Tennessee last year. In 2010, a hunter in Dauphin County was charged after shooting a German shepherd.

Travis Lau, a spokesperson for the Game Commission, said the hunters Heller encountered were in an area “open to public hunting and were in full compliance with Pa game law.” When asked how this could be prevented, Lau had recommendations for both hunters and dog owners. Dogs and their owners should wear fluorescent orange in areas where hunters are present, Lau said.

Hunters need to be able to positively identify their target before shooting, he added.

“It’s a fundamental rule of hunting,” Lau said in an e-mail.

The Hellers have contacted an attorney.