Re: so, the neighbor lady was crying......
I love my animals. I have dogs, cats, and sugar gliders that I care for. We have one barn cat that came with the house that we take care of, and she roams our property and the neighbor's hay field. We've put about $600 in the last 8 months toward fencing of various kinds (including the latest - invisible) to keep our dogs on our property. BTW, that is <span style="font-style: italic">very</span> effective.
If I see a neighbor's dog or cat on my property, it's not a big deal to me. It is a big deal if said dog or cat decides to be aggressive toward one of my animals. We had a problem 2 winters ago with 2 big labs that chased our barn cat under the deck, where thankfully they couldn't reach her. I don't know who the dogs belonged to (no collars), and still don't, but the next time I saw them sniffing through our yard they got a double rubber ball shot from a 12 gauge to the hindquarters. That was their warning, and it was enough.
If you can't control your animals, you shouldn't have them. You're driving along a neighborhood, at the speed limit, and a kid runs out from between 2 parked cars and directly under your car before you can react. It's now your fault for killing a child that the parents weren't watching. Right? It's perfectly fine for toddlers to run loose because people are expected to know where they are at all times, regardless of whether they're playing in traffic or not. Dogs have the reasoning capabilities of a 2 year old. Cats, I don't know if they're smarter and don't care, or if they're stupider and don't know better. Either way, it's the owners' responsibility to know where they are so they don't get hurt - intentionally by someone else or unintentionally.
My dogs have collars and they're friendly. If they ever got loose, I would expect someone to get the info from their tags and call me. There'd be hell to pay if someone shot one of my dogs for being in their field, on account of them managing to break out of the yard. If the dogs for some reason were endangering said landowner's livestock, pets, family, or person and they were shot, then I would have no grounds to be upset because that's the way it is.
Killing something for being on your property = barbaric. Killing something to defend your family, property, or self = common sense.