REDDING, Calif. – A Northern California family is filing a federal lawsuit against sheriff’s deputies for seizing a young girl’s pet goat, Cedar, which was later slaughtered at a local auction.

Shasta County engineer Jessica Long and her minor daughter filed the lawsuit against Shasta County Sheriff’s Office officials, Lt. Jerry Fernandez and detectives Jacob Duncan and Jeremy Ashbee.

In the suit, filed on Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California’s Sacramento Division, Long and her daughter accused two deputies of driving to Sonoma County to seize the pet before the Shasta Youth Livestock Auction.

The lawsuit says Cedar belonged to Long’s daughter, who is under 10 years old and entered the goat in the youth auction as part of a 4-H Club activity.

Initially, Long said, neither she nor her daughter realized that Cedar had been entered into a “terminal auction” – where the animal is slaughtered after the auction ends, with the cuts of meat going to the top bidder.

The highest bid, $902, was placed by California state Sen. Brian Dahle, according to the lawsuit.

But Long’s daughter had “ended up bonding with Cedar and didn’t want him killed,” said Ryan Gordon, Long’s attorney, who filed the lawsuit and represents Advancing Law for Animals.

Joining 4-H was something Long said her daughter “could do with friends and she loves animals.”

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The goat was three or four months old when the family got him and six or seven months old when he was entered in the youth auction in late June at the Shasta District Fairgrounds in Anderson, California.