A 2018 candidate for Fremont County Sheriff shot a family’s pit bull in apparent self-defense Thursday, according to a sheriff’s office report.

Sheriff’s office deputy Clint Wilson, who works as the school resource officer at Cotopaxi School, wrote in the incident report that he shot the dog after it began growling and lunging toward him.

Wilson wrote that he went to a Cotopaxi home at about 2:45 p.m. Thursday to talk with Thomas Plante about an incident that happened at Cotopaxi School with his daughter, who attends school there.

When he arrived at the home, Wilson wrote, he saw the family’s pit bull sitting on the back porch. He waited for someone to walk outside as the dog barked.

“I waited about one minute and no one came out of the residence,” Wilson wrote, adding that he exited his vehicle and walked near a tree as the pit bull began to approach him.

“It had its paws spread wider than its shoulders and head was low to the ground,” he wrote. “It stopped about 4 feet from me to the left of the tree, continuously barking and growling.”

In an attempt to calm the dog, Wilson wrote that he placed his right hand in “a palm up position, out for the pit bull to smell.”

However, he wrote, “the pit bull made no change in stance or attitude.”

Instead, the dog began to inch to the left of him, “in an attempt to get behind me,” Wilson wrote, so he began taking steps backward toward his truck.

The pit bull then lunged toward Wilson, he wrote, and missed his left arm, which he placed in front of him for protection.

“When the pit bull lunged a second time, I pointed my sidearm at its head and neck area and fired,” Wilson wrote. “My weapon was pointed down toward the ground and west of the residence.”

After the gun was fired, the dog immediately pulled up its left leg and started to run away on three legs. Additionally, Wilson wrote that Thomas Plante stepped outside of the home and to tell Wilson to get off of his property.

The aftermath of shooting, detailed in a Facebook post written by Thomas Plante’s daughter, resulted in hours of looking for the wounded dog, which left a trail of blood behind as it ran off.

The dog eventually was found by the family and taken to a 24-hour veterinary hospital in Colorado Springs, where the family paid a $4,000 bill for surgery. The dog survived the incident.

In her Facebook post, the daughter wrote that “justice needs to be served” for the family’s dog.

“Harley has never harmed a soul, nor would he,” she wrote. “He’s the sweetest pit bull ever.”

Lt. Troy Johnston, who responded to the scene with Deputy Greg Owen after the shooting, wrote in a separate incident report that the sheriff’s office offered the transport the dog to the veterinary clinic but could not cover the surgery’s expenses.

“Sheriff (Jim) Beicker advised that the sheriff’s office would not pay any vet bills since the dog was trying to attack the deputy and the deputy had to shoot the dog in order to not be bitten.”

Sara Knuth: 719-276-7644, knuths@canoncitydailyrecord.com