Paul S. Corley, 70, of Hendersonville was charged of two counts of animal cruelty after two dogs belonging to Lisa and Harold Stubbs were shot.
Both dogs were found with gunshot wounds after three of the family's dogs ran from their Merrimac Drive home when someone checking on the home opened the gate.
Cooper, a pure-bred Beagle, was found at around 6 p.m. on Inlet Drive less than a mile away by an area resident who called the phone number on the dog's tag.
When Lisa Stubbs and her husband arrived, they found the dog bleeding and thought he had been struck by a car.
They took the dog to the emergency animal clinic in Rivergate, and were shocked to learn the dog had been shot. Cooper died at the clinic.
"This was just a vicious act," said Lisa Stubbs. "I can't imagine that there was any reason to harm him. Somebody who would shoot an animal, what else would they do?"
Cooper belongs to the couple's daughter Sara, who bought him as a puppy eight years ago.
"He was the runt of the group, and I fell in love with him at first sight," Sara, 26, said on Tuesday.
"It's like losing your child."
By the time the family arrived home late on Saturday, a friend had located the other two dogs and put them in the house. Harold Stubbs soon discovered that one of those dogs was bleeding as well.
They took that dog, a 4-and-a-half-year-old German shorthaired pointer mix named Blakely, to the same animal clinic where a bullet was found lodged between the dog's ribs.
Lisa Stubbs says the veterinarian told them that both dogs seem to have been hit with .22 caliber bullets.
Although the bullet is still lodged in his ribs, Blakely seemed to be doing fine on Tuesday, Stubbs said.
Before the arrest was made, she said her family is anxious to find out who is responsible.
"I'd just love to hear why this happened," she said.
(Tennessean - May 28, 2014)
