Gay Van Schoiack demonstrates how she thinks a dog attacked Cinnamonamon, one of her alpacas, Thursday night at her home northeast of Hermiston.<BR><I>Staff photo by Tammy Malgesini</I>

Hermiston resident Gay Van Schoiack had to call a veterinarian Friday to put down one of beloved alpacas. She found the small white male, Cotton, standing in his pasture that morning with his face ripped to shreds, the victim of an apparent dog attack. His nose was bitten off, Van Schoiack said, and he could no longer chew.

Cotton was the last of Van Schoiack’s alpacas to die this week. She found two, Damian and Nutmeg, Wednesday morning. When she discovered Cotton, she also found two more, named Cinnamonamon and Isabella. One or more dogs had brutally attacked them all.

Van Schoiack, 78, said her alpacas were like pets to her; she delivered Cotton herself when he was born last spring.

“It just breaks my heart,” she said.

Van Schoiack, who lives north of Hermiston near Punkin Center Road, said she woke up early Friday and saw a dog in her pasture. He was a big, multi-colored, long-haired German shepherd type, she said, and he was running along her fence line, looking for a way out. She said she didn’t recall seeing the dog before, and knew it didn’t belong to any of her immediate neighbors.

“If I saw that dog, I’d know who it is,” she said.

Van Schoiack said her alpacas were worth about $10,000. She was raising them for their fur.

After she found her pets, VanSchoiack reported the attack to the Umatilla County Sheriff’s Office.

At around 3 p.m. Friday, Lt. Glen Diehl confirmed the sheriff’s office was investigating the deaths, and said deputies had a “suspect animal.” Unfortunately, he added, the fact that Van Schoiack had not seen the dogs attacking or eating her animals would make a successful prosecution difficult.

Sheriff John Trumbo said livestock predation by dogs increases in the summer when people are more likely to leave their dogs outside. In a letter he wrote Tuesday to Sgt. Greg Hodgen, of the Rural Crime Prevention Unit, he called livestock kills “a growing problem we must get a handle on.”

“I have been forced to take a zero tolerance policy on dogs running loose,” Trumbo wrote. “Dogs caught chasing, menacing, harassing, molesting or killing livestock can be destroyed immediately, and it doesn’t have to be the owner of the livestock who takes action.”

Trumbo said that if a dog is convicted of killing livestock, its owner can be charged with maintaining a public nuisance and be forced to pay twice the animal’s worth. The court could also order the dog put to death, he said.

Unfortunately, no compensation will come to Van Schoiack. She decided late Friday evening she no longer wanted the sheriff’s office to investigate the attacks. She told deputy Darrin Parsons she didn’t get a good look at the dog in her pasture, and could not identify it.