POCATELLO — Pocatello resident Julie Hale says her beloved cat Chaps was incredibly docile and laid back. Whenever the 10-year-old gray and white feline was outside, he would rarely, if ever, leave Hale’s front porch.

“He was pretty much afraid of everything,” Hale said.

That’s why Chap’s violent death has left Hale and her family reeling.

On Wednesday morning at approximately 2:30 a.m., one of Hale’s neighbors awoke to what sounded like two cats fighting. When the neighbor went to investigate outside, he discovered three dogs violently mauling Chaps in Hale’s front yard on North 11th Avenue.

Each dog was a different size — one was big, one was medium-sized and one was small. However, they showed Chaps no mercy.

”These dogs were incredibly vicious,” Hale said.

Hale said her neighbor heard what sounded like laughter coming from a vehicle parked in the street as the attack was taking place. The vehicle was described as a dark-colored hatchback.

When one of the occupants of the vehicle cued for the dogs, the canines left Chaps’ blooded body behind and entered the vehicle, which then made a U-turn and sped away, Hale said.

Chaps died from his injuries soon afterwards.

“He was gone pretty quickly,” Hale said.

Hale, a veterinary technician at Bannock Animal Medical Center in Chubbuck, said the incident was reported to the Pocatello Police Department. However, Chaps’ demise has left his family members with holes in their hearts.

Chaps first entered the Hales’ household when he was a tiny kitten about a decade ago. He got his name because he had a big white stripe across his belly that made it look like he was wearing cowboy-style chaps.

Like many residents in the Gate City area, Hale often let Chaps outside unattended for periods of time. Sometimes he slept inside the home, sometimes he slept outside.

Normally, the feline wouldn’t stray from the porch, which is why Hale said she never worried about his safety. But this incident has changed her thinking.

“People need to keep on the lookout and make sure their pets are inside,” she said.

This advice is also being reiterated by Colleen O’Hara-Epperly with Bannock County Pet Lost and Found, which is a Facebook page devoted to finding missing pets. As O’Hara-Epperly has learned from some of the posts on her page, pets are not always safe when they are outside the home, even if they are in a fenced-in backyard.

“We’ve had reports of pet owners coming home and finding that somebody had opened the fence gates and their dog was missing,” she said.

Cats in particular need to be kept inside the home for their own safety, O’Hara-Epperly said. She said there’s been instances over the past few years where felines in the area have sustained cruel injuries by humans, such as mutilations. One incident she recalled involved a cat that had to be euthanized after it was hung.

“Cats are easy targets for people who want to do bad things to animals,” O’Hara-Epperly said.