Well, medium to large sized dogs can easily kill people while a cat can't at all. You don't have a sizable dog on a leash to protect cats but to protect people and other people's pets. Also you protect yourself from potential lawsuits and criminal charges by keeping it well controlled. 

From what we know so far, there is no reason to believe that the dog would attack a small child. I know family dogs that would defend children to the death who would (and have) easily kill cats, small dogs, groundhogs, etc. Dogs have been bred over thousands of years to treat humans differently from other animals. It is only when they are intentionally trained, neglected, or bred to kill humans that they do. It is why most deaths by dogs in the United States are from pittbulls, which are the dog of choice for low-life scum. 

In the United States, there are only 20 - 30 human deaths from dogs per year. Dog owners are all around much better at owning pets than cat owners, on average. There was a time when people let their dogs outdoors unencumbered, and they were a nusiance, and in many countries this is still true. Feral dogs were and in some places are a big problem, but not in today's Untied States. People realized this was a mistake and corrected it, but cat owners still are resiliant to actually treating their cats like personal pets rather than wild animals that they can bond with. 

By the way, most mammals can carry rabies. Cats are no exception. So they can harm humans. 

See my other post. There is no reason to believe that just because a dog killed a cat that it will kill a human. Likewise, feral mammals can carry rabies, cats included. 

As an animal lover, I wouldn't want to see your dog be euthanized.

However...as an owner of 2-3 cats (my sister leaves her cat with me a lot), my heart goes out to your neighbor as well. Because of your dog, he lost a pet, and potentially a friend as well. I can only imagine how devastated I would be if I lost Mao, who I adopted as a stray kitten and have spent nearly every day with. If I was in that cat owner's situation, I'm sure I would do everything in my power to seek reparations. For me, it wouldn't be losing a cat...it would be losing a close friend.

Honestly...I don't wish harm on your dog...but I also don't want this to blow over easily as well. Because of what happened, your neighbor lost something that can never be replaced, and I just hope you're prepared to take responsibility for what happened.

I have no idea if anyone saw the attack or not. Considering the cat was 14 years old, and as much as I would have liked the cat to give the dog a good ass beating, there was really no way the cat could get out of that situation. 

Anytime we go outside in the front yard the dog is chained up with a metal leash with no way of getting away. There is no way for him to get out the back yard either, unless the gate isn't closed all the way, which sadly was the cause of this. Anytime we go on a walk we never let him off the leash because he will take off. We don't do these things because we are worried he will attack someone. I've never seen him even growl at a person before, let alone bite someone. We do it to protect him from other dogs, cars, and not chase smaller animals.

I'm thinking about getting a long rope for him in the back yard so he doesn't escape if the gate is left open or buy an electrical fence.

Don't listen to the people in here who think that just because your dog killed a cat it definitely will attack humans. I know a family who had a dog that loved to kill big fat groundhogs, animals as big as most cats. He probably killed hundreds in his lifetime. 

It was a chocolate lab, one of the most family-oriented and most recommended breeds around. He was also one of the most trained dogs I ever met. Never once did he leave his property line, and he was off-the-leash trained for walks. It was the sweetest creature when it came to children. In its old age it would protect the family cats too, who he considered its best friends. It could distinguish the difference between prey (groundhogs) and family/friends -- humans. Most dogs can. 

Like I said accidents happen. If one of my parrots were killed by your neighbor's cat (and I've had dozens of cats -- most with collars- looking into my house because they could see my birds through the window -- hell even one came into our house climbing all over my conure's cage) do you think he'd be fine if I called for the cat being euthanized? Probably not. It is an unreasonable expectation. It is even more unreasonable when your neighbor knew very well the risk of letting his cat freeroam outside and didn't care about the damage the cat likely caused to others. 

"For instance, from 1999 to 2014...."

"....Meanwhile, 486 people died from dog attacks and 1,163 people died from attacks by other mammals, such as cows or horses. About 4.5 million dog bites occur each year."

Dogs are ranked 3rd highest in lethal animal attacks to humans in the us from the total of deaths caused by animal attacks that occured between 1999 to 2007

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/17/health/animal-attacks-statistics/index.html

CNN reporting actual real news for once....

Pet cats aren't considered feral just because they go outside.

How does any of that dispute what I said? There are 78 million dogs in this country at any point in time. That only 20 - 30 deaths happen per year shows that the overwhelming majority of dogs are contained and docile towards humans. I suspect that a majority of these dogs also have killed a small animal in their lives (either a groundhog, rabbit, bird, etc.) So my point still stands, just because the dog killed a cat does not mean it will attack humans. 

Let's look at the deaths by dogs in the year 2016 in the United States. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States#Fatalities_reported_in_2016

There were fourteen reported. Out of those fourteen, eleven were pittbull mixes. This tells me that the dogs were likely bred and raised by lowlife scum who train their dogs to attack people or strongly neglected them. The pittbull is the dog of choice for these people. 

A typical dog, raised in a typical family is not going to kill a human, and this is true regardless of whether or not it kills small animals. 

I never said pet cats are considered feral just because they go outside, but a sizable population of outdoor cats become feral because their owners neglect them, only giving them food and water from time to time. Furthermore, even outdoor pet cats do tons of property damage to people's pets and yards, in addition to wildlife. Pet cats are drastically more of a nuisance to the common person than pet dogs, because most cat owners who let their cats roam outside are clueless people who don't deserve to own any pet or take responsibility for the consequences of letting their pet free roam. The OP likely did more to contain his dog than the neighbor did to contain his cat.  

We're not just talking about just deaths but attacks too. There are a ton each year because the dog gets loose or goes after a family member out of nowhere. If a dog shows any sign of aggressive behavior, the owner should be more mindful of it and make sure it doesn't get loose. 

Besides that cat was a pet to another person who cared about it. it wasn't some random wild animal. It being cat doesn't depreciate it's value in comparison to a dog. This would be different if the cat jumped into someone else's backyard with the dog in it and the dog attacked/killed it. It's the cat and the owner's fault in that case and not the dog. This particular dog got out of the backyard because the gate was left open, went over to the neighbor's front lawn and killed that neighbor's cat. It attacks and kills other pets at the very least when it's given the chance.

I'm not saying he'll attack people but there's a higher chance of it with something like this happening where a dog's instinct got the better of it. The owner won't know if he'll attack people until it does and it's too late to take measures prevent it from happening. He should at the very least make sure the dog can't get out (not by tying it to pole when it's in a fenced-in area. that's cruel) by having fencing in good repair with no gates he can't get through or that can be left open. If the dog gets out and attack anything again, he needs to have it put down.