Owner of Once-Condemned Horse-Chasing Dog Agrees to Terms of Reprieve

With the stroke of a pen, the owner of a dog on death row agreed Friday to an emergency reprieve that will let the horse-chasing pooch scamper to his heart’s content at a Utah animal sanctuary.

“I have to call it a victory,” said 22-year-old Sean Roach, who raised the collie-malamute mix named Nadas from a pup. “I want his life to be spared. That’s all I’ve asked for for a year and a half.”

Nadas’ plight has captured attention across the West as a clash between dog-loving urbanites and rural livestock owners.

The dog was seized from outside Roach’s home in 1996 after a neighbor’s 13-year-old daughter complained that Nadas was chasing her horse.

Under a state law intended to protect livestock, county commissioners sentenced the dog to die. However, they agreed to hold off killing the dog while Roach appealed. The Oregon Supreme Court refused to review the case, and the governor declined to intervene.

Faced with a public outcry over Nadas’ impending execution, Jackson County enacted a special ordinance Thursday that allowed them to spare the dog’s life, on condition that Roach agree to send his dog to a sanctuary out of state, have him neutered, never sue the county and never see the dog again.

“I’d love to be able to say, ‘Goodbye, I hope you have a good life,’ to him personally,” Roach said. “But as long as I get the collar he had on when they took him, as long as I get pictures or a videotape after he’s at the facility, I feel a lot better about it.”