Man says he had no choice but to shoot attacking dogs

Bud Linton doesn’t know what made the dogs vicious.

Their upbringing? Hunger? Something sinister in the breed? After they attacked his dog in northeast Colorado Springs, went after a neighbor and her dogs, and then him, it didn’t matter. When a suburban Thursday afternoon turned violent, he stepped in and calmly shot at them both, killing one.

“It hurts me, because I am a dog lover,” he said. “I had no choice. It was a melee.
“They were after all of us. They just didn’t care.”

Linton, an Army retiree, was in his house on Portrait Place around 4 p.m., when he heard dogs fighting in his back yard. His German shepherd Max was fighting with a pit bull and a boxer that had jumped his six-foot fence.

The dogs snarled at his back door when he dragged Max inside. Then Linton went to the front of the house to warn the neighbors. He and his wife yelled to a woman who was walking two smaller dogs, urging her to come into their house. But it was too late and the vicious dogs came tearing at her.

“Oh my God, help me,” the woman cried out, according to Linton.

Maybe it was his Army training. Maybe it was the realization that the situation might not end well. Linton retrieved his Smith & Wesson revolver, went outside and tried to separate the dogs.

The pit bull lunged at him. He pointed the gun against its neck and fired.

Said Linton, “I shot him twice and he went two doors down and died.”

He hit the boxer in the head with the gun but it kept coming at him, so he shot at it and it ran off. Colorado Springs police later located the animal uninjured.

The woman is fine. Her dogs slipped out of their collars during the scuffle but were found, with one having a minor injury. Max is fine. Linton escaped with a scratch on his hand.

Police said Linton will not face charges in connection with the incident, and the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region will decide on sanctions against the owner of the attacking dogs. A spokesperson did not return a call left after hours Thursday.

Both Linton and his wife were shaken by the incident. He cried after the shooting.

“I believe they would have killed that woman,” said his wife Julie Linton.

Said Bud Linton, “It just upset me because they were two beautiful dogs, but they were on the prowl for some reason.

“It upset me greatly. It really does.”

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