A 69-year-old Watkinsville woman who recently shot a hunting dog that she said lunged at her will not be charged, Oconee County Sheriff Scott Berry said Wednesday.

The dog, a Walker coonhound, was shot once in the neck about 6:40 p.m. Saturday at the woman's home on Barnett Shoals Road, according to a sheriff's office report.

The woman told the officer she heard dogs barking loudly in her yard and upon checking, she saw two dogs jumping around her chicken coop. The woman went inside and got her .38-caliber pistol and went back outside, where she found the dogs had cornered her cat under a lawn mower, deputies said.

The woman fired two shots in the air to frighten the dogs, and while one dog ran, the other lunged at her, according to the report. She fired one shot at the dog, which laid down, so she called friends and family to get help, she told the officer.

The deputy asked to examine the woman's gun and found three spent shells and three live rounds.

The dog's owner, a 47-year-old man who lives in the nearby Skipstone subdivision, said the dogs escaped from a fenced area and he was looking for them when he learned one dog was shot, according to the report.

The bullet wound paralyzed the dog and it had to be euthanized, the owner said.

An investigator looked into the shooting, but "our evidence is she acted in self-defense," Berry said.

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