A Washington man says that he had a right to shoot several dogs — including a 6-month-old puppy — that came into his yard over the years.

Kathy Davis told KOMO that her husband called her on Thursday to let her know that her 10-year-old son’s Australian shepherd had been shot.

“He said, ‘Rowdy had been shot.’ I said, ‘How do you know?’ And he said, ‘He’s got a big old hole in his gut and he’s bleeding out everywhere,'” she recalled.

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The family later learned that the dog had escape from its fence into 82-year-old Otis McCulley’s yard.

According to KOMO, McCulley said that it “looked like the dog was about to poop” so he shot it.

“I shot the f*cking thing,” McCulley said.

And he admitted that it wasn’t the first time he had shot dogs for coming into his yard.

Rowdy’s family said that the puppy ran home, where blood stains could still be seen on the front porch. Vets recovered a hollow point .22 round in the dog’s colon, but couldn’t save Rowdy.

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Kathy Davis pointed out that she would have been happy to patch the hole in the puppy’s fence if McCulley had just let her know that it had escaped. And Davis was also upset that McCulley had fired a rifle so close to her home.

“There are so many different ways that this could have been dealt with. Rather than taking out a gun like that and shooting at our dog, at our house, towards our family,” she observed.

The Davis family said that they would pursue civil action in court if the prosecutor decided not to press charges for the shooting.

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For his part, McCulley has denied owning hollow point rounds.

Watch the video below from KOMO, broadcast Dec. 15, 2014.

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(h/t: Examiner.com)