Canton Woman Wants Man Who Shot Her Dog Charged

Stewie, a 4-year-old pit bull mix, was felled with three bullets last May.

After what just happened, Simeon Sponsler, of Canton, feels like she lost her dog “all over again.”

Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Maria Miller said in an email to The Canton Observer that the man who shot Stewie won’t face criminal charges.

Witnesses said the man who reportedly shot the Stewie claimed the dog bolted from Sponsler’s home and was charging at him and making threatening advances toward his wife after having already bitten and knocked down another woman.

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“Her husband got a firearm from his house and stood between his wife and the dog,” Miller said, “As the dog charged at the man, he fired three times, killing the dog.”

Sponsler, though, said it didn’t happen that way.

Sponsler thinks the man who shot her dog should be charged.

“Stewie wasn’t a dangerous dog. He was not a perfect dog. He occasionally got out. I was trying to remedy that situation,” she said, explaining she had recently hired a trainer to work with Stewie.

“I’m most disappointed that this man shot a gun in a residential area,” Sponsler added. “But, there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s done.”