Injured pit bull Mister seen after being shot by Menlo Park police. (Palo Alto Daily Post) Injured pit bull Mister seen after being shot by Menlo Park police. (Palo Alto Daily Post)

MENLO PARK (CBS SF) – A 7-month-old pit bull puppy will apparently make a full recovery after taking a gunshot to the eye when he reportedly charged at a Menlo Park police officer over the weekend.

Menlo Park police spokeswoman Nicole Acker told the Palo Alto Daily Post that the incident began when officers responded to a 911 call on Sunday morning that vicious dogs were running through the Carlton Avenue area, just blocks from the Willow Road off-ramp from Highway 101.

A neighbor had called after one of the dogs chased her as she walked to her car to leave for work. Acker said the officer was approaching the home from which the call came in when Mister lunged at him and he opened fire.

The bullet entered the dog’s skull near the right eye but did not enter his brain, exiting near his ear.

The dog’s owner, Richelle Nice, told The Palo Alto Daily Post that the dog, Mister, has no history of violent behavior but has been known to bark. Nice owns a second dog, Hayze, which was involved in the incident but was not shot.

“They will bark, but that’s all they do,…He’s not vicious,” Nice told the Daily Post.

Nice told the newspaper that her son woke her up when he discovered the dog with blood running down its face.

“I just saw all this blood all over the porch,” Nice said. “When I went back there he looked at me like, ‘What did I do wrong, mom?’”

Mister was taken to the South Peninsula Veterinary Emergency Clinic for treatment.

“He could have suffered brain damage. He was just lucky the bullet came back out,” clinic Dr. John Thelen told the Daily Post.

Thelen described the dog as friendly, and told the Daily Post that the bullet fractured bones around the dogs eyes. He said Mister should make a full recovery over the next several weeks.

Nice said her dogs were known to police officers and told the paper that police had never raised concerns that they were vicious.

“I will never, ever, ever look at the police the same way again,” Nice told the Daily Post. “They are trigger-happy. It’s ridiculous. Go shoot a murderer, not a dog.”

Police have not released the name of the officer involved and the incident was under investigation, according to Acker.

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