Vet Killed Dog For Barking Too Much, Louisiana Officials Say

JEFFERSON PARISH, LA — After a running feud with her neighbors, a Louisiana veterinarian shot the family’s dog, Bruizer, because he barked too much, officials in Jefferson Parish said at a news conference Tuesday. The 15-month-old American bulldog’s injuries were so severe he had to be euthanized, Sheriff Joe Lopinto said.

"This is crazy, a veterinarian shooting a dog of her next door neighbor,” Lopinto said. “This is nuts. I don't know how else to put it.”

The veterinarian, Dr. Kelly Folse, 35, was arrested Tuesday and booked on felony charges of aggravated animal cruelty and illegal discharge of a firearm, as well as two counts of drug possession after a search of her Harahan home turned up two types of narcotics, the sheriff’s office said.

Bruizer’s owner, Stacey Fitzner, told WVUE-DT that members of her family found Bruizer laying motionless in the back yard with a gunshot to his head, clinging to life. In an ironic twist, they took the dog to Abadie Veterinarian Hospital, where Folse works. She was not the treating veterinarian, WDSU-TV said.

Fitzner told WVUE the family pup was friendly and loving — “a great, wonderful American bulldog" that slept with family members and licked them affectionately.

However, Folse thought Bruizer was aggressive, Lopinto said at the news conference. In several interviews with neighbors, investigators didn’t turn up any information to support that, the sheriff said.

Authorities began questioning Folse after the Fitzner family shared what Lopinto called hostile text messages and videos from Folse. They “believed and suspected that she may have had something to do with it," the sheriff said.

Those treating Bruizer were suspicious, too.

"The owner of Brusier had text messages from her that were just totally inappropriate and disgusting, saying things about Brusier," Dr. Scott Abadie, the owner of the clinic, told WWL-TV. "So that gave us the first clue to it. And later that morning there was some statements made about the dog that did not sit well with the technicians and myself and we just told her to leave right there."

Folse was fired the same day the dog died, Abadie said.

"The fact that somebody can do something like that is devastating. The fact that it was a veterinarian. A vegetarian. Somebody that works with rescue animals is just beyond comprehension," Abadie said.

Abadie told WWL the image of the dying dog “will stay with (him) forever.”

“He had a bullet hole in the back of his head, an entry hole,” he said. “And it came through his right eye.”

Lopinto said at the news conference that it’s one thing to “complain about someone’s barking dog, but this is over the top.”

"I don't know what world we are living on where this is OK,” he said. “Whether this is you, me or anybody else; for a vet. I mean, give me a break people.”

Folse’s family told WWL the allegations against her are false and that she loves animals. She volunteered at the Abadie clinic as a teenager, and then began practicing there after graduating from veterinary school.

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