Bristol man who shot neighbor's dog charged with felony animal cruelty

BRISTOL – A 5-year-old dog is recovering from a gunshot wound above his right eye and a local man is being charged with felony animal cruelty after shooting the dog on its owner's lawn last week, police said.

Michael Nelson, 36, a resident of Pike's Point Road, has been charged with cruelty to animals, a Class B felony punishable by 3½ to 7 years in jail, and criminal mischief, a misdemeanor, for shooting named Australian shepherd mix named Tucker.

Tucker, who is owned by Michael and Lynne Furey, Pasadena, Md., and who were staying at their summer cottage several houses down from Nelson's home, is recovering from a gunshot wound above the right eye, the bullet left the skull through his right ear and then hit the dog's rear right toe, said Lynne Furey.

The dog is suffering from a neurological problem and has trouble keeping its balance, Furey said. The toe also had to be amputated.

Nelson, who was not reachable for comment, told police that he was acting in self-defense when he shot the dog on the Furey's lawn at about 3:30 p.m. Friday as the Fureys and several friends sat inside their home, according to Detective Sgt. Timothy Woodward.

“He claimed it was self-defense, that the dog had come to his yard and wouldn't stop barking, so he chased the dog to the owner's home and pulled out his gun, and shot the dog in the head,” Woodward said.

Nelson legally owned the gun, a 9 mm pistol, Woodward said. But police charged him with a felony after the investigation showed his actions were not warranted.

“If his life had been threatened or even minimally in danger, it might have been justified,” Woodworth said. “If this was a 100-pound Rottweiler, you might be able to understand it. But this was a 50-55 pound dog. He could have taken any number of other actions.”

The Fureys, who don't know Nelson, said they were sitting with friends at different sides of the house when they heard Tucker barking, and then heard a gunshot, Lynne Furey said.

“My husband came from one side of the house and I came from the other, and we see this man with a gun and our dog is rolling around in a pool of blood,” she said. “Of course we thought he was dying.”

Nelson looked at the Fureys and told them to call the police. “He said, 'I just shot your dog,'” she said. “He said something like, 'he was coming for me so I shot him.'”

The Fureys rushed Tucker to an animal hospital in Plymouth. It was recommended that the dog be taken to a Boston veterinary hospital, where his toe was amputated.

He is still having a neurological disorder as the result of the gunshot wound, but is expected to make a full recovery in the coming months, Lynne Furey said.

The couple is still shocked by the shooting, though. “He followed my dog with a loaded gun to our private property and shot him,” she said.

LOL!

“Severe issues”?

Try intensive, effective training, instead.

He has a job.

His job is to protect me.

He does his job incredibly well.

“might be a hazard. Don’t let it go out and maul others.”

ROFLMAO!

Yeah..okay...unless some punk begs for it, I won’t.

Our 12 acres was on the perimeter of 1000 acres of State forest land. People weren’t supposed to be back there, but they’d been going back there on old logging roads for generations — just goofing off and target shooting. Despite our deed that said that there was supposed to be a gate blocking the road (which started on our property) the DNR had never erected one until we complained.

There was some guy who kept a trailer back there (on private, not state, property) in a place that was inaccessible by public road. He (and his hangers on, stepchidren, etc. — a rough bunch) liked to cut through our property and use the logging road to reach his trailer because he didn’t want to pay to build his own road. He wasn’t there most of the week, but he kept vicious dogs chained back there to protect his trailer. I don’t know what he was doing, but I always suspected a marijuana grow operation. It was one of his cars that was disabled on the logging road. They got as far as the gate when they kinked out.

One night at about 1 in the morning, we heard rifle shots. We called the sheriff and the deputy on duty showed up about an hour later. He just looked at us and said, “I’m not going back there to investigate.” We agreed that it was probably not a good idea, and we knew then that we would have no protection. My husband brought me a cricket bat to keep under the bed in case of emergency!

Funny thing happened. We never put a sign on our house when it was for sale. We kept our upcoming move a secret from the few neighbors that we had. Our last weekend in the house, we needed to go to the hardware store for some last minute purchase, and we ran into the guy with the trailer. We told him we were moving the following week, and he answered in shock, “Oh, no! Who’s going to protect me, if you are gone!?” SOB.

Ha! My beautiful 4000 sq. ft. house was purchased by the County eventually and became the fanciest ranger station in the whole country. They maintain their own gate now and patrol the place. We are all better off.

Nah...my dad calls him The Horse.

MGM channel is running “The Tender” [which used to be called “Eyes Of An Angel”], a story of a little girl and her found Dobermann with Travolta as her no-account dad.

Real tear-jerker.

My gosh, that dog looks like Odin.

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