THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 13, 1994 TAG: 9407130396
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ROBERT GUY MATTHEWS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
When the garage door opened, Dodie the cocker spaniel quietly made a run for it. Sixteen pounds of flopping ears and swishing tail, she couldn't resist a chance to explore the neighborhood alone.
Usually she would have to tag along with Julia Parcell, her 5-year-old mistress. This was Dodie's first solo, and she was doing what any curious spaniel would do: sniffing trash cans and finding out what was on the next street corner.
That nearly got her killed. A man who lives five houses away mistook Dodie for the notorious Bart, a look-alike spaniel known for running loose throughout the neighborhood and making a nuisance ofhimself. The neighbor, armed with a .22-caliber gun, shot 3-year-old Dodie in the head with a hollow-point bullet.
Andrew Ervin told General District Judge Robert R. Carter on Monday that he shot Dodie because he thought she was Bart. Ervin, a 19-year-old Old Dominion University student, pleaded guilty to cruelty to animals and to discharging a firearm. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail, suspended.
When Julia found out about the May 19 attack, she ``cried her eyes out,'' said her father, J.T. Parcell. ``She couldn't understand what a gunshot wound was. She just knew that Dodie wasn't coming home.''
Parcell, a Chesapeake deputy sheriff, said he put Dodie in the garage the night before she was shot. His wife didn't know, and when she opened the garage door to back her car out and go to work, Dodie escaped.
Parcell came home from the night shift about an hour later and discovered the wounded dog.
``I've been to shootings before and I have not seen that much blood before,'' Parcell said.
Apparently Dodie had enough strength to stagger back home and lie down in her bed in the garage. That's where Parcell found her.
The bullet, which Ervin fired from the second story of his house, had entered just under Dodie's eye, piercing her muzzle and exiting through her neck.
Amazingly, no major arteries or organs were hit. Animal Control officer M.W. Tobin rushed Dodie to the animal hospital.
``Though she still has breathing difficulties, there is no permanent damage,'' Parcell said.
Dodie and Julia are doing fine now. They play and romp and chase one another down Pleasant Way, the street where Dodie was shot.
For Parcell, the story has a happy ending on all accounts.
Five days after the shooting, Bart was picked up for running at large.
And the judge who sentenced the man who shot Dodie didn't stop with the suspended jail time. He also ordered Ervin to spend 160 hours mucking out stalls at the Animal Control Bureau.
``Even though jail would have been very unpleasant,'' Parcell said, ``I think that will have a bigger impact.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
BILL TIERNAN/Staff
Dodie, a cocker spaniel owned by J.T. Parcell of Chesapeake,
survived a bullet wound. The shot was meant for another dog that
runs loose in the neighborhood. Monday, a judge ordered the gunman
to spend 160 hours cleaning animal shelter stalls.
KEYWORDS: DOGS INJURIES SHOOTING by CNB