234 ESSENTIALS OF VETERINARY LAW 



full amount of the injuries inflicted. Where a 

 small dog joined with a hound in chasing sheep, 

 and participated throughout to the best of his 

 ability, his owner was liable, though the hound 

 reached the sheep first and inflicted the more seri- 

 ous wounds. ^^ Any one may kill a mad dog, or 

 one supposed to be mad, or exposed to the infec- 

 tion,-° but there must be good and sufficient reason 

 for so considering the animal. This rule would 

 not justify the killing of a dog just because he may 

 possibly have been exposed to the danger, or be- 

 cause he may have chanced to bite a person or 

 another animal. There is no universal rule which 

 will hold the owner of a dog liable for biting either 

 person or other animal.-^ The dog may have been 

 worried, or it may have been moved with some sud- 

 den and unexpected emotion, tliough habitually 

 quiet and good natured. Or the animal may have 

 been within his legal rights, as where a dog kept 

 to protect an automobile bites a person attempting 

 to get into the rig, or to take something from it, 

 or when a watch dog bites a trespasser upon prop- 

 erty. 



190. Ownership of Animals — How Obtained. A 

 property right in animals may be acquired by pur- 

 chase, by gift, by inheritance, by finding and cap- 

 ture, or by natural increase. Animals ferae na- 

 tnrae may become property by capture and sub- 

 jugation, including killing. Property acquired by 

 inheritance is a matter of record in probate pro- 



19 Johnson v. Lewis, 151 Wis. 21 Kelley v. Tillourey, 81 

 615, 139 N. W. 377. Conn. 320, 70 Atl. 1031. 



20 Brent v. Kimball. GO 111. 

 211. 



