Anyone with a camera near Pleasant Hill’s Sugarland subdivision is being asked to check footage from around November 1, after Owen, a rescued Great Dane, was found shot nearby. Daisy’s Dane Sanctuary founder Chrissy Scott asked people who saw or heard anything, or have relevant footage, to contact her at 816-721-9989, according to KCTV5.
Owen was taken to a veterinarian and later euthanized because of his injuries. The sanctuary said a veterinarian found pellets that may have come from a BB or pellet gun. Pleasant Hill police were seeking doorbell video, but Police Chief Dennis Kleyh told KCTV5 investigators had not received information pointing them in a particular direction. The person responsible has not been identified.
The sanctuary’s account of Owen’s recovery gives the shooting particular resonance for those who followed his rescue: Daisy’s Dane Sanctuary took him in during a May breeder rescue, and he was nursed through a fever so severe that he could not stand. The sanctuary described him as skittish and fearful, and said 30 people joined a search when he went missing. A reward in the shooting case has grown to more than $1,000, KCTV5 reported.
What Missouri law says—and what it does not establish
Missouri’s animal-abuse statute includes unlawfully and intentionally or purposely killing an animal, or purposely or intentionally causing injury or suffering, among its definitions of the offense, according to the Missouri Revisor of Statutes. That legal definition is background, not a finding about Owen’s case: investigators have not identified a suspect, and the available account does not establish who shot him or that the statutory requirements have been met.
Owen’s rescue was part of a larger operation involving a Granby-area breeder. Published accounts describe differing totals for the animals found or seized: KMBC reported 83 living dogs and five dead dogs found, while another KMBC account and FOX4’s report described the seizure differently. Those reports provide context for Owen’s rescue, but do not resolve the circumstances of his shooting.
