An investigation remains underway after a dog was shot and killed in Monroe County.

Patrice Jiunta said her 3-year-old dog, Jak, was killed at around 2 a.m. Dec. 30 in Eldred Township by “two kids who claimed they were hunting coyotes at night.”

However, Jiunta said the kids fled, and the family has offered a $500 reward to identify the two hunters believed to have shot and killed Jak, who just turned 3 last month.

Jiunta said Jak was a purebred husky who escaped from her home on Kunkletown Road, Kunkletown.

“I heard shots from my bedroom window, that’s how close it was to my house. It woke me and my daughter out of a dead sleep,” Jiunta said. “It was loud, like cannon shots.”

Jiunta said that after hearing the shots, she ran downstairs and saw her front door was open.

“My heart sank, I ran outside, jumped in my truck, it was warm and foggy, drove across the stream,” she said. “Where the walking trail is, I saw two kids (they didn’t have hunting equipment on), jumped out of my truck and said ‘Where’s my dog’? They said he is over here, he is alive, but they wouldn’t tell me where he was.

“He was moaning when I saw him covered in blood. They said they were hunting coyotes, and I didn’t even question. At this point, I was in shock; they wouldn’t tell me where my dog is.”

At that point, Jiunta said she started tearing through the brush, and the two kids took off, adding they told her they were with the Kunkletown Rod and Gun Club, and they were hunting coyotes.

“I picked him (Jak) up. He died in my arms,” Jiunta said. “I put him in the truck, drove back, my daughter and I flew to the vet. Of course, he was dead when we got there.”

On Friday morning, Phil Kasper, Game Warden Supervisor with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, Northeast region, said the investigation is still ongoing.

“Our game warden is made aware,” Kasper said. “He has made contact with the caller, and he’s looking into what happened.”

Kasper added that additional details will be provided once more information is available and the investigation is complete.

Though she knows she can’t bring Jak back, Jiunta said her focus is on identifying who the people are “so they can be held accountable.”

“I did not know that you could hunt coyotes at night. I think hunting anything at night is something that needs to be revisited and amended,” she said. “The other disturbing situation is that people were on a walking trail armed and shooting things from a walking trail at 2 a.m.”

Jiunta said she has made it her mission to see to it that things change.

“The zoning regulations need to be regulated and amended, and I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure that happens,” she said. “The combination of a walking trail, private residence and hunting and fishing on Rod and Gun Club property all adjacent to each other is a recipe for disaster; there needs to be setback regulations implemented.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact Jiunta at 610-573-6842, or the game commission at 570-675-1143.