Mystery Setting

Our town of Ampleforth is completely ordinary.  We only have 25 residents, but we all look out for each other.  We're mostly farmers, but we have a few artisans and craftsmen too.  Our town is nestled in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains, so we don't really get visitors very often, but for the few that we do get, we make them feel welcome and at home.  So it was really puzzling when the pets started to disappear.  We had a town meeting, but everyone was puzzled.  We thought it might be a coyote.  That is, until we started to find the bodies.  It was Jim, our postman, who found the first one.  It was hanging in a net from the only streetlight in town.  But that wasn't the strangest thing.  They poor pet's legs and feet had been sanded down to stumps.