A West Fork man was sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty to shooting his neighbor’s dog in the head with an air rifle, according to the Washington County Prosecutor’s Office.
Michael Allen Parks, 52, was sentenced in Washington County Circuit Court to one year of probation and 30 days of community service. He was also fined $500 and ordered to pay court costs in the case, said deputy prosecutor Denis Dean.
Parks reached a plea deal with prosecutors in which his initial charges, felony aggravated cruelty to a dog and misdemeanor cruelty to an animal, were reduced to a charge of misdemeanor cruelty to an animal, Dean said.
The suspect was arrested last summer after his neighbor told police Parks shot her redbone hound named Lucy in the head with an air rifle after the dog ran onto his property
The neighbor said she was riding her horse near Parks’ property when her dog ran past an invisible barrier separating her property from Parks’. Lucy the dog ran up to Parks’ fence, after which Parks went into his home and came out with an air rifle, reaching it over the fence and shooting the dog in the head, Dean said.
The dog was injured, but animal doctors were able to treat the bloody puncture wound and heal the dog, according to the prosecutor.
