Well, at the very least, if you're hunting deer and shooting dogs, you're being pretty irresponsible even if it was an accident. Know what you're shooting at before you pull the trigger is one of the first things taught by game rangers at hunter's safety courses, which are required to own a hunting license.
Also, even if it is your land, you can't just shoot anything that walks onto it; there are seasons for game animals, and unless they are specifically damaging to your property or self, you can't shoot them if they aren't.
That being said, as Fred points out below, it would be ridiculously easy to get most animals qualified as pest animals, including stray dogs; the "Duck Season/Rabbit Season" joke doesn't really work, because rabbits are pretty much automatically counted as pest animals, and huntable year round. That being said, a farmer is required to get a "problem animal" license to kill deer eating their crops; the removal of "problem domesticated animals" sounds more like a local animal control problem then a take matters into your own hands.
Realistically, if your neighbor's dog is on your property, and even if it just annoys you and isn't doing something, the smart move wouldn't be to shoot it; it would be to sue the dog owner.
However, Fred's example is strange; even though the squirrels are "pests," firing a gun in city limits is illegal. Unless he's using a BB gun (air powered guns don't count as guns technically most of the time), or poisoning them (since I guess Fred doesn't really say how the killing was done).
(Last year working at a paper, I was assigned the deer season story, and the vegan was assigned the pheasant season. Rural area that makes a lot of money from hunting, so we set our personal issues aside and did the story, because that's small town journalism. Actually probably her best story of the year.)
Well, at the very least, if you're hunting deer and shooting dogs, you're being pretty irresponsible even if it was an accident. Know what you're shooting at before you pull the trigger is one of the first things taught by game rangers at hunter's safety courses, which are required to own a hunting license.
Also, even if it is your land, you can't just shoot anything that walks onto it; there are seasons for game animals, and unless they are specifically damaging to your property or self, you can't shoot them if they aren't.
That being said, as Fred points out below, it would be ridiculously easy to get most animals qualified as pest animals, including stray dogs; the "Duck Season/Rabbit Season" joke doesn't really work, because rabbits are pretty much automatically counted as pest animals, and huntable year round. That being said, a farmer is required to get a "problem animal" license to kill deer eating their crops; the removal of "problem domesticated animals" sounds more like a local animal control problem then a take matters into your own hands.
Realistically, if your neighbor's dog is on your property, and even if it just annoys you and isn't doing something, the smart move wouldn't be to shoot it; it would be to sue the dog owner.
However, Fred's example is strange; even though the squirrels are "pests," firing a gun in city limits is illegal. Unless he's using a BB gun (air powered guns don't count as guns technically most of the time), or poisoning them (since I guess Fred doesn't really say how the killing was done).
(Last year working at a paper, I was assigned the deer season story, and the vegan was assigned the pheasant season. Rural area that makes a lot of money from hunting, so we set our personal issues aside and did the story, because that's small town journalism. Actually probably her best story of the year.)