The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

People are pretty quick to jump on the shooter. The dog could just have easily ran into a group of rabbits, just as the pest control was taking the shot.

It's pretty clear from the article that the dog was not on the owners land - but on the course itself.

Everyone's saying it's soo easy to tell the difference, but in reality a bunny coloured whippet, running around in an area full of bunny coloured bunnies... it's an easy mistake to make. It's not like he tasered a stationary blind man with a walking stick...

Sorry but I don't agree. I've had enough time out with the lamp, and a rabbit's a rabbit. A fox is a fox. Neither looks whippety.

You'll know when you get something weird going on like a dog running about, and even if you simply have a static dog looking like fox eyes, it's your duty to be sure before you kill it.

There are some dog breeds which could be mistaken for a fox, and if it were another breed then I would be more sympathetic. But with a good heart/lung shot on the dog (and the picture shows that) I do not think we are talking accidental shot. We might be talking mistaken identity, in which case the shooter is a muppet and permission should disappear ASAP, and we might be talking deliberate death of dog. In which case throw the book. However, the article doesn't have info and I don't know the detail.

What I do know after many years out lamping is that a shot such as that was almost certainly a deliberate kill, and a whippet is nothing like the intended quarry on a golf course.

I have personally seen, when out after foxes, a chap with a labrador. He was in range and I could easily have put a bullet between those eyes. I didn't because I know to find out what the eyes belong to and be sure before I shoot.