A lot of people weighed in by e-mail, not with reflections on the law, which doesn’t recognize dogs as members of human families, but with judgments about who was at fault in the incident. Some blamed the dog’s owners for letting the animal wander, even if briefly; others, of course, found the shooter at fault. If I were to admit honestly to any opinion on the case, I’d have to say that shooting – or even shooting at – a domestic animal for innocent trespass is rather heavy-handed and betrays, shall we say, minimal resolution skills. Be that as it may, the law and precedent have been pretty clear on the limits of liability for acts of that nature.

There was, however, one famous case in which damages were awarded for emotional distress and loss of companionship. In 1870 in Warrensburg, Missouri, a prominent attorney named George Graham Vest, representing the plaintiff, became famous with his remarks on the nature of the relationship between a man and his dog. The difference between that case and this current one is that the shooter, a sheep farmer, had publicly threatened to shoot any dog found on his property. When he spotted a neighbor’s hound, Old Drum, in his yard one night, he killed him.

The owner, Charles Burden, sued for damages, which were denied by a lower court. In his appeal of that judgment by a justice of the peace and a couple of subsequent lower court trials, Vest delivered what became known as “Eulogy on the Dog,” which has been declared by William Safire to have been one of the best speeches of the 19th century. It’s worth quoting, at least in part:

Gentlemen of the jury: The best friend a man has in this world may... become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful.... A man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who...do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles...upon our heads. The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him and the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog.

A man’s dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master’s side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer....When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in...the heavens.

If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him to guard against danger, to fight against his enemies, and when the last scene of all comes, and death takes the master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even to death.

Vest went on for an hour and a half, the eulogy occupying only about five minutes. As soon as his opponents heard it, they knew they’d been licked. There were more appeals, their cost far outweighing the size of the judgment; both plaintiff and defendant, former Confederate soldiers, were described as “set in their ways.” The settlement amounted to $50. But there’s a statue of Old Drum today near where his body was found, and you can Google what remains of the speech.

I’m not sure whether Vest’s peroration would sway many jurors today. Some years ago, a pair of young attorneys showed me their planned opening argument for a wrongful death case in which a young mother had expired as a result of alleged neglect. Their script rang every chord: dutiful mother of now-bereaved children, faithful wife, innocent victim of callous attendants, etc. I could not but advise them that overt tugging at jurors’ heartstrings, unless done with the finesse of a master, was not likely to resonate in Vermont, where it’s easily perceived as a big-city lawyer’s trick. I think they toned it down a bit; in any event, they won.

However, in the case I referred to in the first paragraph, the plaintiffs did not win. On May 21 the Vermont Supreme Court, in a decision beautifully written by Associate Justice Marilyn Skoglund, affirmed the decision of the Washington Superior Court that Vermont state law “does not recognize noneconomc damages for the malicious destruction of personal property, even when the property is a beloved pet.” The plaintiffs chose not to cite previous cases in which damages have been awarded for intentional and wanton destruction of an animal; rather, they chose to challenge the legal definition that holds pets to be (in the words of their attorney) “like an end table.” Didn’t work. The court defined pets as in “a legal realm somewhere between chattel and children.” It expressed compassion for the suffering of animal lovers whose companions have been killed by the thoughtlessness, incompetence, or malice of others. But: “We do not doubt plaintiffs had a strong emotional bond with their dog and have suffered by Shadow’s untimely death. That said, we adhere to our long-standing precedents in affirming the trial court’s ruling.”