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Alexey Osmolin can’t sleep. He can’t work. He can’t eat. And when he’s at home, he finds himself reaching out for someone who is no longer there.

It’s been this way, Osmolin said, since Sunday, the day a conservation officer shot and killed his dog Rada.

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Rada, a five-year-old Belgian Shepherd, was sitting by Osmolin’s side Sunday afternoon as Osmolin and his friend monitored their fishing lines on Black Water Lake, just outside Pemberton, B.C. After several hours of ice fishing, they were getting ready to call it a day.

I turned around and heard the shots

At some point, Osmolin said Rada, whom he’s had since she was 2½ weeks old, left his side by the ice hole. He can remember hearing Rada barking, turning to see what was going on, and watching, horrified, as a conservation officer, gun in hand, opened fire.

He said there were three to four shots in rapid succession.

“I turned around and heard the shots,” said Osmolin, a Russian national who has lived in Canada since 1997. “I just started running [toward Rada].”