Dog Shooting Leaves Minooka Family Distraught, Man in a Nightmare

A dog is dead.

A 66-year-old retired man has been charged with two felony counts.

He is confounded because he feels he acted in self-defense. And a woman and her two sons are heartbroken following an incident they believe easily could have been avoided.

Merrill C. Kaval, 66, of Minooka, was arrested and charged with aggravated cruelty to animals and criminal damage to property, both felonies, Minooka Police Chief Justin Meyer said, following an April 1 backyard shooting of a 10-month-old English bulldog in Minooka’s Lakewood Subdivision.

Meyer said Kaval was arrested after the Grundy County state’s attorney reviewed a report compiled by Minooka police. Meyer said his officers were dispatched to a home in the 1400 block of Levato Lane a few minutes after 7 p.m. April 1.

“While en route, our officers were informed a person had shot a dog,” Meyer said. “When the officers arrived, they went to the back yard and saw the animal—it was dead. After speaking with witnesses and the suspect, they filed their report and it went to the Grundy County State’s Attorney’s office.”

Meyer said the report initially underwent a review process, then Kaval was indicted and subsequently the state’s attorney’s office issued a warrant for his arrest. He was taken into custody on April 2 and released after posting bond. He has a court date of April 25 and has hired an attorney to represent him in a case he describes as “surreal.”

In an exclusive telephone interview with Patch, Kaval said he shot a dog after his two Bichon Frises—Tina and Scruffy—were attacked in his back yard by two stray English bulldogs—the bulldogs weighing about 70 pounds each, nearly three times that of each of his Bichons. The shooting occured after Kaval pulled his dogs from the fight and returned them safely to his house, though he said both were hurting.

When he went back outside, Kaval said the two bulldogs were chasing after a woman and two children who live in a home just north of his own. Police confirmed he is the licensed owner of a handgun with a valid FOID card.

“I started running and I shot the dog,” Kaval said. “I called the police. There was another neighbor of mine who has a small dog and had the dog on a run in her back yard. I found out the two bulldogs were going after her dog just prior to attacking my dogs. They left blood on her patio door glass. She witnessed me rasslin’ with these dogs.”

Kaval said he spent $160 to have his two Bishons treated on the night of the incident at Mallard Point Veterinary Clinic. He said he’s an animal lover—not a hater—and he has three shelves of dog treats in a cabinet at his home to prove how much he spoils his dogs.

“If anybody wishes this never happened, it’s me,” Kaval said. “I’m a victim—myself and my two dogs are victims as far as I’m concerned. For someone to say, ‘Oh, he shoots a dog because it’s barking.' Oh, please, for someone to relate that information—that woman wasn’t there. I was—I lived this.”

Two sides to every story

Kaval’s account of the events and the shooting stand in stark contrast to those of Minooka's Deb Fitzgerald, who until as recently as 10 days ago owned a family of three English bulldogs.

All three escaped from her yard on the night of the shooting. The mother, Moscato, went in one direction. The two other dogs—Charlie and Roscoe—went another. Charlie was killed in the incident.

“My dogs got out of my yard, which I’m totally responsible for,” Fitzgerald said. “But I have my teenage son—he’s 15—and he feels terrible, like this was somehow his fault. We do have a fenced yard. But the latch on the gate wasn’t clasped. My son (Tyler) had fed the dogs and let them out. He was going back in to grab some water.

“In that time—less than 1 minute—the dogs took off. They were gone. Dogs get out all the time. But they don’t get shot.”

Fitzgerald said her two English bulldog pups crossed Ridge Road and entered Kaval’s yard, where they encountered his two Bichons.

“They ended up in this gentleman’s yard,” Fitzgerald said. “They were playing, wrestling, fighting—doing whatever four dogs do when they meet up. The man picked up his two dogs and took them inside.

“He grabbed his gun and ended up in his neighbor’s yard. He said to the neighbor, ‘I’m going to shoot those ‘effing’ dogs. He shot my dog Charlie in the back. The neighbor picked up my other dog, Roscoe.”

Meyer said he’s never seen or heard of anything quite like the dog shooting incident during his 10 years with the Minooka police department.

“We’ve had calls—complaints in regards to animals running at large, whether they’ve been attacked or not,” he said. “But this is the first time I’ve heard of someone who shot a dog in village limits.”

Fitzgerald created a Facebook page—Justice for Charlie—earlier this week and has reached out to the English bulldog rescue group for support and advice on how she should proceed in legal wrangling and help her sons cope with the loss of Charlie. She said she will attend Kaval’s trail and will consider all of her options.

“They’ve told me to stick with the state’s attorney for now,” Fitzgerald said. “They told me if I wanted to file a civil lawsuit that it’s a possibility. Then, I’d have to hire my own lawyer.”

Fitzgerald’s two sons—Brandon, 18, and Tyler, 15, attend Minooka Community High School. She said they feel like they’ve gone through an emotional ordeal that could have been avoided.

“You come home at the end of the day and they’re waiting for you—the dogs,” Fitzgerald said. “I can’t even grasp it right now—what happened. His dogs were out of harms way—inside. I can’t even grasp the concept of what that man did.

“I don’t want to even try to envision my dog running away and getting shot in the back—the fact that he had to die the way he did. I can’t accept that.”