Back in November, we told you about the strange case of dogs attacking vehicles at a Houston used-car lot and doing what’s said to be hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. Well, a pair of strays have now been captured. As to why they were tearing up cars night after night, it seems you can blame cats.
One dog, a bull terrier mix being called Dasher, was caught in early December. He was captured using traps provided by Houston animal control shelter BARC. The second stray, which looks a bit Doberman and hasn’t been given a name yet, was more wily, eluding capture until a trap finally got him on Dec. 31, KTRK-TV reported (video above). Both dogs are being held at BARC.
The dogs were shown on surveillance video night after night, scratching paint and literally tearing bumpers off of vehicles at G Motors. Finance manager Imran Haq estimates they caused an estimated $350,000 in damage, but it’s unclear how many cars were damaged, and the vehicle highlighted in the TV report was a Toyota Corolla.
Haq and sales manager Gaby Fakhoury contacted BARC when the attacks began in November. They believe the dogs entered the lot by crawling under a fence.
“We have never seen something like this — dogs attacking cars and causing damage,” Fakhoury told KTRK.
Why were they doing this? It’s believed the stray dogs were chasing stray cats, which fled in and under the cars.
″(I) just want all my customers to know that everything is taken cared of, and you know, we feel for these dogs, to be honest,” Fakhoury told the TV station. “But they are in good hands, so we don’t have to worry about them right now. They can be adopted, or whatever the city of Houston wants to do.”
Dasher has been deemed healthy, shows no signs of aggression toward people, and is adoptable, a BARC spokesperson told KTRK. The other dog is still being evaluated, but Fakhoury said Dasher was really more the instigator, and “the black one was kind of a follower,” so let’s hope his temperament clears him for adoption too.
Meanwhile, an Italian village made headlines last month after police determined that a dog was responsible for slashing the tires of several parked cars over a matter of months. That dog’s named Billy and he lived near where the tires got chewed. Billy’s problem? He had gingivitis.
Contains Associated Press
