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Couple Upset After a Police Officer Shot and Killed Their Dog

A Central Arkansas couple is upset after a police officer shot and killed their dog.
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HIGGINSON, Ark.- A Central Arkansas couple is upset after a police officer shot and killed their dog.

“It makes me sick to my stomach,” says Sarah Meyer who says she and her boyfriend are heartbroken after finding out Monday what happened to their one year old white lab, McCoy.

“I feel like a part of me died yesterday with him,” says Meyer. “It was very sad. I feel angry.”

After her boyfriend went to work, McCoy got out of the yard from an area under the fence where he’d dug a hole. 

Meyer says they never saw him alive again. 

“I can’t imagine what was going through his head in his last moments.”

Higginson Police Chief Eric Patterson says he was there with two officers from Kensett when the lab was shot.  He says they’d received calls about the dog acting aggressive, attacking neighbors animals and even turning on people.

“While they were trying to approach it kept growling, barking and the hair was standing up on its back,” says Chief Patterson.

Patterson a former K-9 handler of a black lab says he believes something happened to the dog after it got out of the yard to spook it, causing it to act out of character.  He says officers on scene tried everything to calm it down but nothing worked.

Patterson says when the dog jumped at an officer baring his teeth, the officer shot him.  Patterson says it’s not the way it’s usually handled and he wishes things would’ve went differently.

“This time it went totally wrong,” says Patterson.  “I’m very sorry for the incident. I feel bad for the family, I really do.”

Meyer says it’s hard to believe their sweet, good natured lab could ever be aggressive and now they just have to focus on his brother who is still not sure what happened to his playmate. 

“We just have to live with it and the fact that they did it,” says Meyer.

Chief Patterson says they are still investigating what happened leading up to the dog being shot.

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