Wearing a plastic protector around his face, 'Blue,' a three year male pit bull, has been shot and wounded in the shoulder and hip.

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"This is wrong. This is animal cruelty, this is excessive", says his owner Tiffany Reynolds.

Reynolds, and her angry and concerned neighbors say the gunfire came from an MPD officer's service weapon.

"It was like pop pop pop pop," recalls neighbor Sheila Love.

"We heard five shots," says Kathy Washington, who also lives nearby.

"We actually jumped up and ran in the house, because in the beginning we didn't know what was going on," she adds.

Witnesses say around one Thursday afternoon, they saw 4th District officers pursuing a man on a bicycle, near the 900 Block of Crittenden Street, NW.

Reynolds says one officer came up an alley, his gun drawn, and told her to grab her dog, who wasn't on a leash.

But then she says, "As my dog looked back, he began to shoot at my dog."

"And you're still holding onto him?" asked ABC7 reporter Richard Reeve.

She replied, "As I'm grabbing him. The officer could've shot me. I'm grabbing toward toward the dog and he's shooting my dog."

Perhaps most frightening, Reynolds says, was that the gun was pointed at her and her sister.

"I think the officer was really scared," Shana Reynolds says.

"Probably scared him more 'cos he pointed a weapon at us," she adds.

Thursday night, an MPD spokesman confirmed an internal investigation is underway--- that an officer did fire his weapon, and that a dog was shot.

Blue ran off, and was discovered by a neighbor at 7th and Shepherd, at least several blocks away.

He was later treated at an animal clinic in NW Washington.

Reynolds was cited $100 for not having her dog on a leash.

She and her neighbors insist the dog would never hurt anyone and they want answers.

"I have never, as long as I'm living, and I'm fifty, seen that dog attack anyone," Washington says.

Reynolds says what's strange is that the officer involved is on the beat in the neighborhood- that he knows the dog, and the dog knows him.

She says she's like an explanation, or perhaps an apology.

Blue, despite his wounds, is expected to survive.