A DOG OWNER was shot dead by thieves when he tried to apprehend them after they shot and killed his pet dog.
The thieves shot the man, Huynh Thanh Hai, 44, using a homemade stun gun in the incident on early Saturday morning in the southern province of Long An.
According to a Vn Express news report, provincial police have arrested the three men involved and one of them will be charged with murder.
Police said two of the three men are residents of Long An and they visited the third man in Dong Thap Province last Friday.
The trio allegedly took drugs and all three returned to Long An late in the night on motorbikes to steal dogs owned by locals.
They also brought with them homemade stun guns to electrocute dogs.
After successfully stealing two dogs from a house in Long An's Tan Hung District, they moved to Hai's house.
However, his dog died after they shot it with the stun gun.
Hai woke up on hearing the commotion and tried to stop the thieves and he shouted for help.
As they tried to escape, one of the men fired his stun gun, hitting Hai in the hip and he collapsed immediately.
Shocked by what happened, two of thieves fled but one of them decided to stay back and help the family take Hai to the hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.
The thief who stayed back was later arrested by the police and following interrogation, police tracked them to a hotel in Thap Muoi District where they were hiding on Sunday afternoon.
The thief who shot Hai will be charged with murder while the other two will be investigated for property theft.
Vietnam consumes an estimated five million dogs a year, second only to China's 20 million.
Many dogs served at restaurants are stolen pets sold to small, unregulated abattoirs.
Dog theft is treated as a crime only when the stolen dogs are valued at more than VND2 million (US$86). Vietnam has no law against trading in and consuming dog meat.