Dog shot, killed in Oak Orchard

Tank's tail never stopped wagging. Shot by a man in Oak Orchard May 31, the dog's jaw was shattered, his tongue severed, but his tail never stopped wagging, his owner says.

“With all that pain, he was still wagging his tail,” said Jim Sekcienski, who owned the nearly 2-year-old Chocolate Lab with his wife Karen. “The vet couldn't believe it.”

The couple rushed the dog to the emergency animal hospital in Salisbury, but returned home without their beloved pet, leaving them with only memories of their short time together.

Now charged with a felony, Herbert Manley of Kent County is scheduled to appear Thursday, June 24, in Sussex County Court of Common Pleas, on the charge of cruelly or unnecessarily killing an animal.

Charles Drummond, a resident of Oak Orchard, said there was some commotion in the area about 8 p.m. when the dog got out of his yard. Drummond said Manley was in the area looking at a home, and he walked up and down the street three times before taking out a gun and shooting the dog.

“The dog was on his [own] property, and he was backing up,” Drummond said.

Another neighbor had gone to get a leash for Tank before he was shot at the corner of Oak Orchard Road and Delaware Avenue.

Sekcienski said he heard a pop, then someone said his dog had been shot.

“I went up to him face-to-face,” he said. “He was still holding his gun, and he said Tank was trying to bite him.”

Nothing about Tank was aggressive – he was a dog whose best friend was a cat. The kind of dog who would sit passively while frogs jumped by him on the lawn, Sekcienski said.

“This guy discharged his weapon with no regard to anyone who was in the area,” he said. “He just plain out murdered my dog.”