The shooting death of a dog last week near Campbell Lake has shocked residents of a close-knit South Anchorage neighborhood, with the dog's owner calling it a premeditated attack and the shooter saying he was defending himself and his child.

Jason Mellerstig, the man who shot the dog -- a 7-year-old female chocolate Lab named Skhoop -- said at his home Tuesday that he has been seeing death threats on social media since Monday evening, when local media outlets posted stories based on accounts of the shooting from Skhoop's owners.

Since Sunday, a sign attached to a stake has been posted in the yard of the dog's owners with the words "Dog Killer" and photos of Mellerstig and Skhoop. It features an account of the shooting from the perspective of Skhoop's owners. But Mellerstig, who was moving into his new home on Thursday when the shooting occurred, says the account is incorrect.

Mellerstig, 44, said Thursday's incident was the first time he'd ever used a gun for self-defense.

"In close to 25 years, I only shot at paper and steel targets," Mellerstig said.

Anchorage police spokeswoman Renee Oistad said in a statement that the shooting took place on the 3500 block of North Point Drive, along the northern shore of Campbell Lake, at about 2 p.m. Thursday as Mellerstig and a small child got into a pickup truck in front of the dog's home.

"(Mellerstig) fired several shots at the dog which were fatal," Oistad wrote. "After the dog lay deceased in its own yard, the shooter drove away and did not call police. A witness had provided police with the license plate of the shooter."

Melanie Janigo, who owns Skhoop with her husband Dave Brailey, said the dog was previously used as a "bear dog" to scare away bears from camps along the Susitna River. Skhoop was kept inside an invisible fence on the property by a collar that shocked the dog if it stepped beyond the fence's bounds. Brailey said the shock collar worked on a radius-detection basis, with a 67-foot radius set within which Skhoop could travel before triggering the collar.

Laura Atwood, a spokeswoman for the Anchorage Animal Care and Control Center, said the center hadn't received any reports of domesticated animals being shot in defense of life or property for at least the past year.

Mellerstig said he, his wife and their four children, all under age 9, had just moved into the neighborhood Thursday. With moving vehicles filling the driveway of his new house, Mellerstig, a commercial pilot for an Alaska-based air carrier, had parked his truck in front of Brailey's home with the passenger side facing the front lawn.

As Mellerstig prepared to load his 3-year-old son into a car seat on the passenger side shortly before 2 p.m., he said Skhoop ran down the lawn toward them.

"This dog came tearing down the yard at a full rate of charge -- teeth bared, lips snarling," Mellerstig said. "In that three-second span, I had a half-second in which to make a decision to guard my son's life; I made a decision to guard my son."

Mellerstig said he tried yelling at the dog, but when that didn't work, he drew the handgun he was carrying, a 9 mm Glock pistol with a 10-round magazine.

"I had to make a split-second decision," Mellerstig said. "I yelled, 'Stop!,' the dog didn't stop -- I shot to stop the threat."

Skhoop had been sitting in the home's front yard, which extended down to the street along an incline as Brailey worked nearby. He said he hadn't heard Mellerstig yell before the gunfire.

"That was when I heard from the driveway three or four barks, at least five shots," Brailey said. "I was right outside and I didn't hear anybody say anything -- there was no shout that I heard."

Brailey said he rushed directly toward the commotion, initially intending to reprimand Skhoop for barking so much -- but that in hindsight, his approach may have left him vulnerable to rounds ricocheting off rocks on the home's front lawn.

"I think I ran straight into the line of fire," Brailey said. "I could have so easily been killed if he had missed the dog, or he had hit one of the boulders."

According to Mellerstig, however, he didn't even see Brailey in the front yard when he fired.

"That is absolutely preposterous," Mellerstig said. "He did not approach until the shooting stopped."

In the wake of the shooting, the two men briefly exchanged words and took photos of the scene with their phones. Both men said Skhoop's body lay halfway across the property line, the dog's front half on the street and its rear still in Brailey's yard.

Brailey said he wondered why Mellerstig didn't fire a warning shot into the air, or tackle the dog himself -- a view echoed by Iain Stephen, a neighbor who witnessed the incident's aftermath.

"Based on his position at the truck, there were ample ways for a 250-pound man to maneuver his way out of the situation without using deadly force," Stephen said.

Mellerstig said he didn't have time to run from the dog, however, and that he believed any other response would have put his son at risk.

"If I'd been any slower we'd probably be all wearing stitches," Mellerstig said. "I would be on the ground, wrestling with the dog and trying to get it off my son."

After apologizing for shooting the dog, Mellerstig said he drove away with his son and returned to speak with police about 20 minutes later, after a "cooling-off period."

"I tried to be calm and compassionate for him," Mellerstig said. "I said, 'I'm very sorry for your dog's loss.'"

Stephen said a homeowners association for the neighborhood convened a meeting Monday night to discuss the shooting, which was attended by a few dozen residents who discussed whether they would be comfortable having their children play with Mellerstig's. Stephen said Mellerstig's home was across the street from the neighborhood's formal boundary.

"One of the beauties of the Campbell Lake area is that there's no fences between people's homes, physically and socially," Stephen said. "I think what's most disturbing to all of us is that there's someone who lives in our neighborhood that feels it's OK to do that -- shoot first and ask questions later."

Asked about the meeting, Mellerstig said nobody had told him it was taking place. He said he hoped to eventually speak with Brailey and work out a way forward.

"I did not know about it, and I would have liked to have gone," Mellerstig said.

Brailey's home didn't have a fence along its front yard Tuesday, or any visible signs of a dog or a radio fence. Sitting next to the "Dog Killer" sign was a makeshift memorial featuring a dog bed with flowers laid on it.

"This was a deliberate, premeditated act," the sign read. "He made no attempt to contact me before killing her, despite the fact that I was outside, walking toward her to see what she was barking about."

Mellerstig refuted that view Tuesday, saying Brailey was ultimately responsible for Skhoop's death because the dog wasn't physically restrained on a leash or properly trained to refrain from charging people.

"He knew his dog was doing this and should have trained it, but instead he went for this lazy approach," Mellerstig said.

The dog had previously caught the attention of animal control. Skhoop was classified as a "level-one loose and aggressive dog" in April 2015, according to Atwood, with animal control. Specific details of what led to that classification were not immediately available Tuesday.

According to city animal-control laws, a level-one designation is justified if "an unrestrained animal is found to menace or chase, and display threatening or aggressive behavior, or otherwise threaten or endanger the safety of any person or domestic animal."

Brailey said the 2015 Animal Care and Control citation was the result of a technical issue with the fence.

"The battery had failed on her shock collar so she barked at someone," Brailey said.

As Mellerstig stood outside the Brailey home Tuesday, describing the sequence of events, Brailey stepped onto the front lawn. The two had a tense conversation in front of members of the media.

"I'm coming to a realization of this as a deliberate thing," Brailey said. "You could have killed me."

"I want to talk to you," Mellerstig responded. "I would like to figure out how to forgive each other and reconcile."

"I don't think this is a really good time to do this," Brailey said.

Drivers slowed their cars as they rolled down North Point Drive to watch the exchange. One man, at the wheel of a station wagon, rolled down his window and made eye contact with Mellerstig.

"Good luck, dude," the driver said pointedly. "Lots of luck."

Brailey said he hoped to speak with Mellerstig as well after Tuesday's events, saying he visited Mellerstig's house on Friday but didn't find him at home.

"I'm actually kind of relieved a little that he spoke to me," Brailey said. "Today was a little different with him than it was the first day."

Asked about Mellerstig's questions about the sign near the memorial, Brailey said he planned to take it down Tuesday afternoon.

Police said the case had been forwarded to the city prosecutor's office for "consideration of criminal charges."