Veteran asks for military burial for combat dog that was shot and killed

POWELL, Wyo. — An Army veteran is asking for a burial with military honors for his dog that was shot and killed outside Powell.

Matthew Bessler's 10-year-old Belgian Malinois named Mike was shot and killed last Saturday by a bicyclist who says the dog attacked him.

Mike served with Bessler in Iraq in the U.S. Army acting as a combat dog and in bomb detection. When the pair returned from their deployment, Bessler adopted Mike. The dog helped Bessler transition from combat to normal life as he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I raised him and trained him as a puppy, and the ability he has to sense some of the issues that I have with seizures, with my PTSD, my TBI (traumatic brain injury) and severe anxiety disorders, how he can calm me down just by him being in my presence ... He can help take the focus and help change the focus of what’s going on with me and help me calm down or relax me,” Bessler told the Billings Gazette.

According to the Powell Tribune, the bicyclist who shot Mike told the sheriff's office that he felt threatened by a pack of dogs that he encountered while on the road. The man said he first used a bicycle as a defense but then grabbed a revolver from his bicycle-mounted holster and shot the dog.

However, Bessler — who was out of town at the time of the shooting — disputes the cyclist's account.

“If the guy was actually fending the dogs off with a bicycle, (Mike) would have really been barking, and there was no barking," Bessler said. "All there was was just a shot. The guests who were at the house, they said the same thing. There was no barking. It was just a gunshot.”

The 59-year-old Powell man who shot Mike has not been cited for any wrongdoing.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.