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From the original news article:

Bessler described Mike as a nice dog who was gentle with children, enjoyed being petted and always wanted to play ball.

“He would never attack someone,” he said. “The only time he ever protected property was when somebody stepped on to my property and looked into the back of my truck.”

Bessler added that Mike effectively had no teeth from years of chewing rocks out of anxiety.

Bessler said Mike “never gets out on the road” and would only briefly run alongside people passing by.

“I believe the gentleman just shot the dog on my property,” Bessler said, adding, “I don’t buy his story.”

The man said the encounter took place in the road, and Steward said that’s consistent with what the neighbor told the deputy.

“She comes out, and laying in the intersection was this guy’s bike and him standing there,” Steward said.

The man initially reported he’d been attacked by a “pack of dogs,” but he later admitted that — while several other dogs came near him — only Mike threatened him, Mathess said.

Bessler said the three other dogs with Mike when the incident occurred were smaller than Mike, including a puppy, and that none of them are aggressive.

“If it went down the way the guy said it did, then so be it,” Bessler said. “But I’m disgusted with the fact that the guy hasn’t even shown his face to say, ‘I’m sorry this happened.’”

Steward said the Sheriff’s Office plans to follow up on a few inconsistencies, such as whether bird or buck shot was used, but he said “everything’s pretty consistent with what the victim’s telling us.”

Bessler said his next step will be having an autopsy performed and “memorializing, remembering Mike and taking care of services.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m still so flabbergasted over the whole thing of why a person would be carrying the types of things he (the bicyclist) was carrying.”

Steward doesn’t think it’s that unusual for someone to be carrying a weapon.

“A lot of people, when they walk or ride bikes around here, they’ve got pepper spray, a gun or a stick,” he said. “And that’s because dogs come out and chase bikes (and) people.”

The sheriff called it “tragic all the way around.”

http://powelltribune.com/news/item/14141-service-dog-retired-military-k-9-killed-in-weekend-incident