CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (AP) — When Sookie Gregory’s 7-year-old purebred Jack Russell terrier got out of her yard a couple of weeks ago, she wasn’t overly concerned at first, because he’d run off before.

But when he didn’t come home for a couple of days, she became worried. And the West Milford woman’s worst fears were confirmed when she found the dog dead, shot twice in the stomach.

According to law enforcement officials, there doesn’t seem to be any particular increase in danger to domesticated animals and household pets during hunting season. In fact, Paul Johansen of the state Division of Natural Resources said pets are far more likely to be injured because of vehicles than from being accidentally shot by hunters.

But don’t say that to Terry Lamm of Walnut Hills, who recently found one of her cats shot to death outside her barn located off the Hinkle and Deegan Lakes Road.

And this wasn’t the first time Lamm’s family has lost an animal at the hands of a hunter — last year, her sister’s beagle was shot.

“Hunters should be more responsible for taking the lives of people’s pets because it’s very painful,” Lamm said.

Lamm is convinced her cat, which she described as a healthy, well-fed barn cat — “a great big fella with all kinds of white on him” — wasn’t killed accidentally.

“This cat was shot right in his own backyard,” she said.

Gregory, too, doesn’t believe her dog’s death was the result of a wayward bullet, but rather a malicious act. Gregory said she filed a police report over the dog’s death because she has noticed a high number of missing purebred animals from the West Milford area over the past few years.

She knows of one family that has gone to the extreme of having to keep their pet in a kennel with a padlock.

Even though instances of pets being killed during hunting season are “rare and unusual,” Johansen said he believes there’s no defense for a hunter ever shooting at a cat or dog in the woods.

“Quite frankly, there’s no excuse for it,” he said. “If someone were to shoot someone’s dog or cat, I wouldn’t even characterize them as a hunter; I would call them an outlaw.”

At the same time, Johansen, who personally owns dogs and cats, said some of the onus is on pet owners to keep them indoors and safe.

“Pets really shouldn’t be allowed to roam too far from home,” he said. “You lose an element of control when a pet is outside the home and running free.”

In Lamm’s case, part of the problem is that her barn is outside city limits, and very near woods. Locals often come to the area to hunt because it is near the road and convenient, she said.

“It just should not happen,” she said of her cat’s “willful murder.”

Law enforcement officials in North Central West Virginia agree with Johansen that reports of household pets being shot during hunting season are not very common.

Sometimes deputies will investigate reports of a farmer shooting a dog that is harassing his livestock, but Upshur County Sheriff Virgil Miller said that’s allowed under the law. And, even that doesn’t happen often, he said.

“Once in a great while we have incidents of a cow being shot or something, but it’s few and far between as far as (domesticated) animals being shot,” Miller said.

Taylor County Sheriff Robert Beltner said he couldn’t remember any problems in recent years with pets being killed by hunters in the woods.

A few years ago, deputies investigated a report of a goat being shot, he said, but that’s about the extent of it.

Still, Beltner said it’s a good idea to keep pets indoors “if they do a lot of running in the woods, especially.”

The other side of the coin is that hunters need to be aware of their surroundings and follow basic hunter safety rules, officials said.

“Restricting pets ... is nearly impossible,” said Harrison County Chief Deputy Albert Marano. “The best thing is what the DNR already promotes, which is hunter safety, knowing what you’re shooting at and what’s behind your target.

“I think all in all, most hunters are safe,” Marano said. “If they weren’t, we would have more accidents than we do.”