- Written by Max Mazza
- BBC News, Seattle
A Washington couple said they slaughtered two of their pet pigs after a mobile butcher mistook their home for another address.
The pigs, Betty and Patty, told a local news channel that they were shot in their pen while the couple was not home.
“I can't believe someone would come onto my property and do something like that, and I'm angry,” owner Nathan Gray said.
Police told BBC News they had received a report of the incident and notified the local prosecutor's office.
The couple, who live in Port Orchard, told police they returned home on May 1 to find their pets slaughtered. My home's surveillance camera system alerted me to an unknown truck on my property.
Gray told Seattle news station King TV that one of his employees approached him and said, “They shot your pig.”
“I turned the corner and Patty and Betty were both dead in the cage,” Natalie Gray said.
“They were never meant to be slaughtered,” she said. “They were supposed to be pets.”
Mr Gray said one of the butchers told him he thought he had visited the premises before and said: “The GPS must have been broken.”
“They didn't even knock on the door,” he added. “That's insane.”
The couple said the pigs, nicknamed “Fatty Patty” and “Big Betty,” love to chase their daughters and play in the mud, and will spend their entire lives at the Gray Acres farm. Ta.
The Grays now want to prevent something like this from happening again and want the laws governing mobile demolition to be changed.
“Bottom line: If someone is coming onto your property with a firearm and trying to kill your animals, you should stay home,” Gray said.
A spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Agriculture, which oversees meat processing regulations, told King-TV that she was unaware of the allegations.
They said this is not something they normally test for.
“The issue does not appear to be related to unsanitary practices, equipment issues or failure to affix ID tags – things that companies could be cited for failing to comply with,” the official said. Stated.
“The law treats Betty and Patty no differently than a golden retriever or a Norwegian forest cat,” the couple's attorney, Adam Karp, told the outlet.
Even though animals are legally classified as “livestock,” intentionally injuring animals without justifiable legal reason is a serious crime, and butchers can be held civilly liable for livestock theft. He said that there is a sex.