KHQ.COM EXCLUSIVE: Dog Shot & Killed On Spokane's South Hill - Spokane, North Idaho News & Weather KHQ.com

KHQ.COM EXCLUSIVE: Dog Shot & Killed On Spokane's South Hill

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SPOKANE, Wash. - Thursday night a miniature longhair dachshund was found shot to death in the backyard of a home on High Drive in Spokane' s prestigious South Hill neighborhood. The dog was missing for more than an hour and a half before the owner finally found him frozen in the snow in a pool of blood.

Kathy Thayer, adopted the dog from the Dachshund Rescue NW last October. "We just fell in love with him. He was so cute and so small, he could fit in a shoe box. I have no idea why someone would do this," Thayer said.

Thayer returned home around 5:30 and let her two dogs, Corky and Chicca, outside to go to the bathroom as per their usual routine. Not long after, her dog Chicca came running inside "freaking out and in a panic. I kept trying to get him to stay down...I didn't know why he was acting like that," Thayer said.

She went to call Corky inside. "I kept calling for him, but he wouldn't come." Kathy and her son got out flash lights and started looking for their dog. "I thought maybe there was a hole in our fence that I didn't know about and the dog had gotten out, but we didn't find one."

They then started searching their neighborhood for the dog but with no luck. "I just kept thinking, he has to be in the backyard...there's no way he could have gotten out."  Kathy and her son returned to search their yard and that's when they found Corky at about 7:45pm, laying in a pool of blood in the middle of the lawn.

"We are devastated," Thayer said. She called the police who have since been interviewing neighbors. Where the dog was found and the angle the bullet went through his body, it had to have been shot from one of two neighbor's backyards. "Whoever shot him. Must have been relatively close," Thayer said.

Thayer has never had any neighbors complain about the dog being loud. "He's just your typical little dog with a yappy bark and he wasn't left outside for a long time."

The police are still investigating the incident and told Thayer this is the only time something like this has happened in her neighborhood.

This story wad filed and written by KHQ'sNichole Mischke. Email her at Nichole.Mischke@khq.com