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Dog’s shooting death angers midvalley neighborhood

Scott Condon
The Aspen Times
Aspen CO Colorado
Courtesy photo
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PITKIN COUNTY – A family is grieving and residents of a midvalley subdivision are seething after a full-size Pomeranian was shot and killed by a single BB last weekend.

Remy Martin III was the 9-year-old pet of Ashlee and Archer Bishop. He was shot sometime between 9 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Friday. After two surgeries, he died 34 hours later Saturday night.

“That was a long, painful death for him,” Ashlee Bishop said.



The family wanted to share the sad story to alert other dog owners in Holland Hills and to try to find information that leads to the shooter. Bishop said she and her husband have no clue who shot their dog. They weren’t aware of having any enemies. It is possible that Remy was simply used for target practice for the fun of it or was intentionally shot after he escaped his yard.

Whatever the case, Bishop said, it’s not right.




“I’m in my anger stage of the grieving,” she said. “This is just disgusting.”

Everyone thinks they have a special dog, but Remy was amazing and a member of the family, she said. The Bishops also have two sons, ages 1 and 3.

“He wiggled his tail with his whole body. He never met a stranger,” Bishop said.

He was foolish enough to bark at grizzly bears in Alaska and adventuresome enough to go jet-skiing and snowmobiling. He even played soccer with the family.

Remy was discovered by a baby-sitter Friday. He was lying in the street near the family’s home on Holland Hills Road. He wouldn’t get out of the way of passing vehicles.

Bishop said she thought Remy was having a diabetic reaction until she found a laceration above his right thigh. She took him to an animal hospital where an X-ray showed a single BB tore through three sections of intestine and came to rest in the dog’s pancreas. The damage appeared to be limited so there was initially no surgery. Remy took a turn for the worse at his home, so the Bishops went to another animal hospital. Two surgeries couldn’t save him. Bishop said bacteria leaked into his system from the intestine wound. He died at 11:30 p.m. Saturday.

Pitkin County Animal Control was notified about the shooting. Adding a potentially sinister twist is the fact that the shooting wasn’t isolated. Bishop said a veterinarian found a BB in the body of their husky two years ago while attending to another emergency. It had penetrated the skin but apparently caused no problem.

BB guns are much more powerful than they were 40 years ago. They have such a high muzzle velocity that they can easily penetrate skin as well as flesh.

Bishop said she cannot imagine any of her neighbors shooting Remy.

“This is a very neighborly neighborhood,” she said. Just about everybody has dogs. “I don’t see any young kids that are malicious,” she added.

There was a “sense of outrage” as neighbors heard about the shooting, Bishop said.

“We’re all feeling like our neighborhood is under assault.”

Hutch Hutchinson, the Bishops’ neighbor and president of the homeowners association, said Remy was a well-tempered dog that “had the patience of a saint” and was popular with kids and adults.

“Remy was an unbelievably sweet Pomeranian,” Hutchinson said. “This was absolutely, truly senseless.”

When people learned of the act, they were very surprised, shocked and eager to try to help.

“We’ve got a really close neighborhood,” he said.

Hutchinson said he and Archer Bishop were talking and expressed hope that Remy’s death came out of an act of ignorance, not maliciousness.

“I’m hoping it’s a kid who doesn’t know any better,” Hutchinson said.

scondon@aspentimes.com