[Cagdu] Mike Huckabee's Son Kills Dog. Huckabee says, "It was mangy. It looked like it was going to attack."

[fred chambers]

Is having mange a legitimate reason to kill a dog?




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Home --> Politics --> Mike Huckabee --> Slain Dog

Slain Dog

Claim:   The son of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee killed a dog.

Status:   True.

Example:   [Collected via e-mail, January 2008]

Can you tell me if it is true that presidential candidate Mike  
Huckabee's son was convicted of animal abuse?


Did Mike Huckabee's son, david, really kill a dog for fun at a boy  
scout camp?


I recently received an email which claimed that Mike Huckabee's son &  
another boy were expelled from a private school because they brutally  
killed a dog. Are you familiar with this claim?

Origins:   On 11 July 1998, two young men working as counselors at  
Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, Arkansas, killed a dog at that Boy Scout  
camp. One of those young men was 19-year-old Clayton Frady of  
Texarkana, and the other was David Huckabee, the youngest son of then- 
Arkansas governor (and current Republican presidential hopeful)  
Michael Dale "Mike" Huckabee. (David Huckabee was just two weeks shy  
of turning 18 at the time of the killing.) Both young men were fired  
over their participation in the

incident.

That is where the undisputed facts of the story leave off. All the  
rest, including why the dog was killed, how the dog was killed, and  
whether Governor Huckabee attempted (successfully or otherwise) to  
forestall investigations into his son's act, is up for grabs and may  
never be known.

While the dog itself is consistently described as a stray that had  
wandered onto the property, the only other description of it comes  
from Marcal Young, scout executive of the Caddo Area Council that  
operates the camp where the animal was killed, who said it was  
"probably a mixed breed." As to why the dog was killed, different  
people say different things. Governor Huckabee said in a 2007  
interview conducted by Larry King that "It was mangy. It looked like  
it was going to attack." The father of the other young man fired over  
the dog's slaying said in a 1998 news article that his son had come  
upon one or more Scouts who had the dog "hung over a limb and  
choking," so his son helped "put it out of its misery." Scout  
executive Young said in another 1998 news article that the two young  
men had told him the dog appeared ill.

No one connected to any of the principals appears to want to talk  
about how the dog was dispatched. The only person in that group who  
has said anything about the details of the incident is Danny Frady,  
father of Clayton Frady (the other young man involved), and even then  
he didn't state what his son did; he said only that when his son came  
upon the animal, it was being hanged by others.

Anonymous rumors about how the dog was killed say Frady and Huckabee  
hanged the dog, slit its throat, and stoned it to death.

As to why the young men were fired if what they had done was put a  
suffering animal out of its misery or struck down a sickly animal  
that looked like it had been about to attack, Scout executive Young,  
the person who dismissed them from their jobs, said the pair were  
fired because they had violated a Scout law: "A Scout is kind."

A December 2007 Newsweek article reported that shortly after the  
animal's death, the local prosecuting attorney wrote a letter to the  
Arkansas state police asking them to investigate the case to see if  
the two young men involved had violated state animal cruelty laws.  
The state police did not look into the matter, and no charges were  
filed.

John Bailey, then director of Arkansas's state police, told Newsweek  
that people in Governor Huckabee's employ (his chief of staff and  
personal lawyer) leaned on him to write a letter officially denying  
the local prosecutor's request for an investigation. Newsweek  
reported that: "Bailey, a career officer who had been appointed chief  
by Huckabee's Democratic predecessor, said he viewed the lawyer's  
intervention as improper and terminated the conversation." Bailey was  
fired by Huckabee seven months later, with (according to Bailey) one  
of the reasons given by Huckabee being that "I couldn't get you to  
help me with my son when I had that problem." Newsweek also quoted  
I.C. Smith, the former FBI chief in Little Rock, as saying: "Without  
question, [Huckabee] was making a conscious attempt to keep the state  
police from investigating his son."

Governor Huckabee has denied using his influence to keep police out  
of the matter, saying to Larry King: "Well, let me categorically say  
that is absolutely not true. I never used my influence. In fact, if  
anything, I said treat it like you would anything else. I don't want  
special treatment for him or against him. My son was a minor at the  
time. It was not a criminal issue. It was an issue that was dealt with."

Last updated:   7 January 2008

The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/politics/huckabee/dog.asp

Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2008
by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
This material may not be reproduced without permission.

    Sources:
     Isikoff, Michael and Holly Bailey.   "A Son's Past Deeds Come  
Back to Bite Huckabee."
     Newsweek.   24 December 2007   (p. 9).
     King, Larry.   "Larry King Live."
     CNN.   17 December 2007.
     McFarland, Elizabeth.   "Governor's Son 1 of 2 Fired at Scout  
Camp After Stray Dog Killed."
     Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.   7 August 1998   (p. B3).
     Associated Press.   "Huckabee's Son Fired Over Dog Incident."
     10 August 1998.



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