A loose horse on the highway is an obvious threat to vehicular traffic, but how do you deal with it? Catch the horse? Open a gate and herd it into a pasture? Both make sense if the person doing the catching or herding knows something about horses.

Shooting the horse, on the other hand, is not a solution that comes immediately to mind.

A few Fridays ago, Shane Doyle responded to a call about a horse running loose on state Highway 187. Doyle is a Lieutenant with the Sheriff’s Department in Edmonson County, a rural area in the Mammoth Cave region of Kentucky. Civilian efforts to catch the loose horse had been going on for a while, and another 20 minutes or so of fruitless chasing ensued after Lt. Doyle arrived on the scene. Finally, the officer made what he called a “very difficult decision”Ñhe shot and killed the loose horse.

“My number one priority is keeping the people of Edmonson County safe,” Lt. Doyle was quoted as saying afterward, “and I felt that that was what I was doing, and unfortunately the animal had to lose it’s (sic) life for me to keep the people safe