The mayor has admitted shooting resident Duane Wahl's dogs on Feb. 1, saying a neighbor complained that the dogs chased his children and the Crawford County Sheriff's Department had not acted on previous complaints about dogs running loose.

"We all should be proud we have a mayor like Don Call that will take care of us and protect our kids," Shirley Showalter told the council.

Wahl did not attend the meeting, but he told The Joplin Globe that residents were wrong to support the mayor.

"The fact is, whether they like the idea that he shot my dogs or not, he still shot my dogs on my property," he said. "They were on chains in my yard when he shot them. It was still wrong. It don't matter if my dogs got loose in the past."

According to police and the mayor, Call shot the dogs with a 9 mm rifle as they lay on the sidewalk outside Wahl's house.

Larry Dunnick told the City Council that his daughter was nipped by one of the dogs a year ago.

"If I'd have known about it at the time, you wouldn't have had to take care of the dogs," he said.

Crawford County Sheriff Sandy Horton has said that since July 2008, his office has received four complaints about three of Wahl's dogs running loose and acting aggressively but that none of the complains came from a victim.

Louita Carter, a neighbor near the dogs' home, told the council she and her husband have complained several times.

"We have put up with him for a year and a half," she said of Wahl. "He always says he is going to take care of the problem, but he's never taken care of anything."

___

Information from The Joplin Globe