A family in Ohio is demanding justice after a neighbor shot their 8-month-old puppy to death in front of two children.

Martin Smith told WTOL that the Labrador/border collie mix named “Puppy” was running to greet the two boys as they got home from Sunday school on Sunday. That’s when 64-year-old Vietnam veteran Christopher Zimmerman pulled out a gun and shot the animal with the children looking on.

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Smith said that his son “can’t get it out of his mind.”

“Noah was right there,” the father recalled. “It was really close. He thought he was gonna get shot. He didn’t know what to do, he just ran for his life.”

Although a complaint was filed last month about the puppy being off its leash, neighbors insisted to WTOL that Zimmerman had used excessive force.

“An 8-year-old boy should never have to witness anything like that,” neighbor Jan Blausey remarked. “Sunday, he couldn’t even come from upstairs.”

And now the family wants to know why Zimmerman was only charged with inducing panic and injuring an animal.

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On her blog, mother Misty Smith said she couldn’t understand why “the same man who would coax Puppy into his driveway would suddenly turn on him and hate him so.”

“He will appear in court [on Wednesday] at 10 AM but the only charges are inducing panic and injuring an animal. That doesn’t get him help that gets him nothing and we are left with the mess,” she added. “What I need is someone who can help us make him get help someplace away from a school and a family with 7 children. I cannot get them another puppy as long as that man is there.”

“He is a veteran whose wife has to tell him over and over, ‘the war is over’. He needs help before someone is hurt worse. There has to be something that can be done.”

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Watch this video from WTOL, broadcast Sept. 10, 2013.

MSNewsNow.com – Jackson, MS

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(h/t: Daily Mail)