RUMFORD — A Dixfield man was charged Monday with killing a German shepherd dog while deer hunting in Magalloway Plantation last week.

Christoper J. Salatino, 40, of Spring Street, was issued a summons by the Maine Warden Service to appear in Rumford District Court in January on a charge of shooting a domestic animal, Edith Smith, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife spokeswoman, said.

Salatino thought the dog was a coyote, which are in season, Smith said.

The dog had hunter orange flagging around its collar and was in the woods with its owner, Cindy Williams, of Errol, N.H. Williams is a forester and was tagging trees for her employer, Wagner Forest Management, at the time of the incident, Smith said.

Warden Brock Clukey of Andover, who investigated the incident, said Williams reported the shooting to New Hampshire authorities, who contacted the Maine Warden Service.

“She met (Salatino) and (he) felt really bad about what happened and gave her all the information she needed,” Clukey said.

“Unfortunately this is another case of a hunter not practicing ‘100 percent identification’ before shooting a target,” Smith said, referring to a similar incident last week.

On Nov. 3, Seth White, 53, of Orrington was charged after shooting a German shepherd that he thought was a coyote. The dog was running loose in the woods in Orrington, she said.

It is legal to shoot coyotes, Smith said, because they are considered predators of deer and one of the factors behind the state’s decreased deer population.

Assisting Clukey with the investigation is Warden Norman Lewis.