Ninety years ago a dog was shot and the resultant case in the Supreme Court hung in the balance until truly unexpected evidence appeared. I told a version of this story live on West Bremer Radio.

Between July 1932 and September 1933 about once a week a dog visited a farm paddock at Kingaroy, Queensland. It became the centre of the most bitterly waged canine controversy in Australia and it can be traced directly to Adolph Hitler.

Hitler’s power was on the rise in Germany and in January 1933 he was appointed the German chancellor. He was regularly photographed with German shepherds. While the world feared Hitler’s future, there followed a natural hatred by association of the German shepherd. Since the First World War against Germany, the breed across the British empire was called Alsatian, and there was a movement to have the breed banned entirely from Australia.

Amongst all this unrest, that dog continued to visit the Kingaroy paddock. Kingaroy grazier Edward Carroll, who owned the land, witnessed the dog among his heard, killing, maiming and stampeding his cattle. He reported that it was an extra-large Alsatian – and that’s when the story began to attract public attention, altimately increasing almost to the point of hysteria.

Farmer Carroll found eight cows dead and believed that they had been stampeded and died. They were torn around the hind quarters. He found a heifer still alive that had a piece of flesh as large as a man’s fist ripped completely from each haunch.

Then came the great showdown with the dog. At daybreak on the 17th of September 1933, Carroll was roused by the sound of his cattle bellowing. He got his gun and rushed out. Some distance up the paddock he saw a mob of cattle bunched together and a dog barking among them. When he got there he saw a big dog attacking the cattle. It was rushing around and snapping at the calves.

Carroll worked the cattle clear and fired at the dog. The dog yelped and made off in the direction of the town. Since then Carroll had no further trouble.

He heard later that the dog had died but had no proof who owned the dog. Until one day he was charged with wrongfully and unlawfully killing an Alsatian. The charge was brought by the popular Kingaroy practitioner Doctor John Cyril Thompson who identified himself as the dog’s owner.

Carroll now had the proof of dog ownership he needed, and so sued Dr. Thompson for £252 damages to his cattle. The doctor counterclaimed for £100 being his valuation of the dog.

The action made national headlines. Lovers and haters of the Alsatian breed proclaimed support for their particular cause. Here was one of Hitler’s dogs killing our Australian beef! It seemed as if the Alsatian itself was on trial. The case remarkably proceeded all the way to the Supreme Court of Queensland.

Mr Leopold Charles Marienthal appeared as an expert witness. Marienthal testified that Alsatians had been grossly defamed. He claimed that about ninety per cent of Alsatians in Queensland over three years of age had their teeth worn down below the gums, and therefore effectively had no teeth to bite with anyway.

Marienthal’s testimony may have been seen as dodgy. Not only did he have a suspiciously German-sounding name, he was a car salesman, sold Dodge cars, and was the campaign director of the Alsatian Shepherd Dog Defence League which hardly made him an impartial expert.

The case appeared to hang in the balance until it was revealed that Dr. Thompson, prior to being transferred to Kingaroy, had practiced two hundred kilometres south-east in Ipswich. His sister still lived there.

So the search was on in Ipswich for a reliable and yet incriminating witness. Such a witness was found in the form of Miss Gertrude Saunders. Gertrude was the housekeeper at Ipswich’s Lyndhurst Private Hospital. Her sister Eva was the owner and matron.

Gertrude testified that she had a conversation with Dr. Thompson when he was practising in Ipswich. She asked was it true that Alsatians were fond of blood and ravenous like wolves. She said the doctor replied yes, adding that his dog had killed a calf and a number of sheep.

Dr. Thompson claimed he couldn’t remember Gertrude, although he did recall her sister. But the damning Ipswich evidence was plain to see.

The jury found in favour of farmer Carroll who was awarded £77 damages. It also found that Dr. Carroll had sustained damages of £20.

And so ended the great Alsatian trial of 1934 in which the Ipswich evidence tipped the balance, while Hitler and his Alsatians marched to war in Europe.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON WEST BREMER RADIO.

Photo credits:
Hitler and dog – hounddogphotography
Hitler and dog – HubPages.
Dr John Cyril Thompson – Truth, Brisbane, 9th September 1934 page 19.
Matron Eva Saunders at Lyndhurst Private Hospital, Ipswich, 1943 – Picture Ipswich.