Trip and Kayla Kiss have had to say too many goodbyes this week.
According to FOX 13, the couple owns a petting zoo for children with disabilities in Tooele, Utah, that was attacked early Monday morning by a neighborhood husky dog.
Trip first spotted the canine racing through his farm on a surveillance camera he had aimed at his yard. The footage shows the dog running between different dark corners of the yard, where Trip said the dog was killing animals.
“He was chewing our goose that was at the back end there, he dug out the rabbits in their enclosure,” Trip told FOX 13 of a fraction of the damage the dog caused.
By the time the Kiss family got outside the dog had killed “two rabbits, two ducks, five chickens, a turkey, a goose,” they told FOX 13, beloved animals which Trip found dead and scattered across a two-block radius. He also found he wasn’t the only farm visited by the dog: After calling the police about the incident, Trip learned the dog, named Nikita, also killed 15 chickens belonging to a woman who lived a few houses away.
The Tooele City Police Department was eventually able to pick up the dog, bring her to an animal shelter and locate her owner, Mackenzie Morton.
By the time Nikita was picked up she had killed 27 animals, reports USA Today.
Morton told FOX 13 that she and the dog were staying at her boyfriend’s house, which was located near the Kiss’ petting zoo, and that the husky escaped the house. Morton tried to follow the dog, leading her to two dead chickens, but was unable to catch her. Worried about waking the neighbors, Morton opted to leave the door cracked open for the dog rather than try to hunt her down in the dark.
“I didn’t think she was going to go on a killing spree,” Morton said. “I did not know that, at all.”
According to the 4-year-old dog’s owner, this behavior is unusual for Nikita. Morton, who said she feels horribly guilty about what happened, has apologized to the animal owners affected and plans to pay the $1,350 in damages.
The Tooele City Police Department told FOX 13 that Morton has been cited with 27 counts of misdemeanor attacking animals and one count of misdemeanor animal running at large.
As for Nikita, the dog is undergoing a 10-day quarantine at an animal shelter, sometime after which Morton and the dog with attend an administrative hearing with several police officials. At this hearing, it will be determined what kind of danger Nikita is to the community, if any. The outcomes of this hearing vary from Nikita being released back to Morton, to her being placed in the care of an animal rescue, to her being euthanized. The date of this hearing is TBD.
Trip, who lost more than 10 animals during Nikita’s killing, spree hopes the dog isn’t punished for her actions, since he believes it is Morton who is at fault.
“I feel anger,” he said. “I feel anger toward the owner, because she could have prevented this.”
The Tooele City Police Department has not yet responded to PEOPLE’s request for comment on this incident.
