A dog walker fell to the ground in Takoma Park last month and suffered a serious brain injury. When she regained consciousness, she found that her own dog had been shot to death.
“The last thing I remember before it all happened was stepping out the door with the dogs, and the next thing I remember, I'm sitting over there on the steps talking to a paramedic and I'm looking at my dog on the ground,” said Jordan Tucker, the owner of Peanut, an American bully-bulldog mix.
She was walking her dog and two other dogs from the neighborhood when the dogs started pulling away from her, causing her to fall.
A neighbor who called 911 claimed Peanut was aggressive toward Tucker and that he shot the dog when Peanut charged at him and his wife.
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His wife defended her husband to News4.
“I can tell anybody from what my husband and I witnessed as far as the dog attacking the young lady, I feel as if the decision my husband made was the right decision,” she said, asking not to be identified.
"My heartfelt apology is so sincere to the point where if I could hug them and tell them, you know, it was something being done out of care," she added.
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She said her husband is a legal gun owner.
Tucker denies the allegations of an attack and said she did not have any bite marks.
“It wasn’t a dog fight," she said. "I wasn’t mauled. I was out walking three dogs that I really care about in my neighborhood.”
Takoma Park police confirmed that during the 911 call, they heard a woman screaming and dogs barking. The case is under investigation.
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“It happened, again, very, very fast — too soon for, I think, anybody to make a really good decision before the shots were fired,” Tucker’s mom said.
The man who shot the dog has not been charged, his wife told News4.
Tucker said she expects it will be months until she recovers from her injuries. She said she hopes to return to dogwalking.
