A Missouri family was left heartbroken after a sheriff’s deputy shot and killed their emotional support dog – a two-year-old chocolate lab named Nala.
Dianna Dollins said the deputy had arrived at her and her husband’s Farmington property on Sunday to ask them whether they had any doorbell camera footage of a robbery that occurred across the street earlier that day.
But when the deputy arrived unannounced on their porch, he encountered Nala – whom the family had recently bought as an emotional support dog for Dianna’s husband, Scottie, who has been recovering from brain tumor surgery – and fired his weapon.
‘It’s just devastating, there are no other words for it,’ Dollins told KSDK.
The family now argues the deputy should not have been on their property in the first place – noting that he did not have a warrant and was not invited onto their land.
They said they did not even know the officer was on their property until Scottie heard the shooting, Dianna shared in a July 21 Facebook post written by her husband.
‘My husband heard the shots and came running around, and there she lay,’ the couple recounted, telling how the dog was found lying in the gravel driveway with a gunshot wound in her head.
‘He had already shot her. He immediately started saying she bit me. He was already back at his car in his car door.’
The St. Francois County Sheriff’s Office now claims the Labrador bit the deputy’s wrist and elbow – prompting the officer to fire his weapon.
Sheriff Daniel Bullock said the deputy is receiving rabies shots, claiming that the family did not have up-to-date immunization records for their dog.
The St. Francois County Ambulance District’s administrator also said an ambulance was dispatched to the Dollins’ residence, but was then told there was no patient at the scene.
Yet the family says Nala ‘would not hurt a fly,’ and even if she had, it ‘didn’t warrant shooting [their] dog dead.’
‘She’d never bit anyone,’ Dianna said, as her father, Ronald Widner, noted that ‘Nala welcomed everybody.
‘But the way they do it is they jump on you and their tongue is wagging,’ he said.
‘They greet people like that. I’m sure that’s what happened, and if he has a mark on him, he’s got a scratch mark.’
The dog was adopted to be emotional support for Scottie, who had been recovering from brain tumor surgery, and was considered part of the family.
‘Nala had been there with him through all of that,’ Dianna said. ‘She slept with us every night.’
The family is now calling for justice for their beloved animal, who had recently had 10 puppies and was wearing a shock collar that prevented her from leaving the property at the time of the shooting.
‘After it happened, there was no remorse,’ Dianna said. ‘It was still “I did what I had to” with a bad type of attitude.
‘I don’t know if he’s a good man or if he’s a bad man, but he’s a scared man with a gun,’ she added. ‘And I don’t think that we need scared men with guns protecting our country.’
She went on to say that the deputy should have had his lights on or honked to let the family know he was there before he showed up at their property.
‘That man does not need to have a gun,’ Dianna said. ‘This does not need to happen to anyone else.’
The sheriff’s office is now investigating the shooting, with Sheriff Bullock saying his office is waiting on reports from the Farmington Police Department, which had officers respond.