LINWOOD, Neb. - A Linwood man says he was left with few options when he saw that an eight-month old Husky had killed nearly 40 chickens inside his coop.
"It was in a killing frenzy, so I don't know what else I could have done," says Kuhn.
News Channel Nebraska spoke with Mark Kuhn on Monday, just over a week after he shot and killed a puppy that wandered into his chicken coop.
"I saw the dog in the pen, with a chicken in its mouth, I opened the gate, tried scaring it out, it growled at me," says Kuhn.
Nebraska state law appears to justify the killing, saying anybody that has “just and reasonable ground” that a dog killed their domestic animals, can kill the dog.
Still, Kuhn says after he saw the dog in the coop, he first tried to force the dog out.
"I yelled at it, it growled at me and jumped at the fence, I said that's enough and I went in and got the gun because I was not going to get bit trying to save my chickens," says Kuhn.
The dog owner, Alyshia Czarnek, questioned that the chickens were killed by the dog, named Link. She said that the birds could have frozen to death, or that a fox got into the pen.
A heat lamp was inside the pen when NCN was shown inside on Monday. Also, Kuhn does not buy the argument that a fox got in his coop, saying that they are nocturnal animals and the incident happened in the day.
After shooting the pup, Kuhn, alongside a Butler County deputy, put the body inside a garbage can.
"I didn't want it to be laying out in the yard so everybody in town or whosever dog it was, would be sick because I left it laying out in the yard," says Kuhn.
He also said that he took no joy in the killing, saying that he owns many pets, but he did it to protect himself.
"I regret shooting the dog, I didn't want to shoot it," says Kuhn. "What am I supposed to? If it got it out of the pen, is it going to attack me?"
Check out the video above for clips of Kuhn's interview with NCN.
Linwood Man Who Shot Dog: ‘I don’t know what else I could have done’
