Dog vs. deer?

[Lee Borgersen]

Published February 16 2011
Dog vs. deer? It might have been

Early Tuesday morning, a News Tribune carrier spotted what he thinks was a domestic dog attacking a whitetail deer in Duluth's Piedmont Heights neighborhood.
By: Sam Cook, Duluth News Tribune


  Jerry Thoreson was delivering newspapers about 4:15 a.m. Tuesday when he saw some scuffling in the driveway of Patricia LeGarde’s home on Springvale Road in the Piedmont Heights neighborhood.

At first he thought he was seeing two deer, but he realized he was seeing a deer and what he said was a black Lab mix. He shined the headlights of his car on the two and saw that the dog was attacking the deer.

“Clearly the deer was in distress,” said Thoreson, who also works in the Duluth News Tribune’s advertising department.

As he approached the driveway with his car, the dog scampered off. The deer was still alive.

But when he returned after completing his route, about 5:15 a.m., Thoreson said the dog had dragged the deer to the edge of the drive and was hovering over it.

“There was blood everywhere,” he said.

When Thoreson approached in his car, the dog again ran off, he said. Thoreson couldn’t tell whether the deer was dead or alive.

It was dead by 7:30 a.m., when LeGarde said she noticed blood on the snow of the driveway. She called her son-in-law and next-door neighbor, Rick Menz, who came over and dragged the deer into the woods. The deer was dead, Menz said.

Menz said he suspects the deer was killed by a bear, or possibly wolves or a coyote.

“We just don’t have any dogs running around (the neighborhood),” Menz said. “I’d be surprised if it were a dog, but we can’t rule it out.

“It may be a bear. We had a nuisance bear hanging around last fall, and there are a lot of deer in the neighborhood.”

He said there are two bear dens within two blocks of LeGarde’s house. Bears are typically denned up this time of year, although some will leave their dens for short times.

Thoreson has no doubt that a dog, a large black Lab mix, did the killing. Asked if it could have been a bear, he said, “Absolutely not.”

LeGarde said the deer was young.

“This one was bound to get it,” she said. “It had a bum leg.”

As crust forms on the snow beginning this time of year, dogs sometimes pursue and kill deer, Department of Natural Resources officials say. DNR conservation officers, in their weekly reports, often remind residents to make sure their dogs are tied up or fenced in so they cannot chase deer.

[Bobby Bass]

Should be noted that this took place in the middle of the city.  Duluth has many wooded corridors through it and having bear and deer is not uncommon at all sharing the streets. This being a dog kill is not really a surprise as dogs do get out and some owners let them run free. Lot of snow in the city and with the recent warm weather and then cool nights deer are at a disadvantage running on pavement then having to go through deep snow.