An Oak Harbor woman is petitioning the courts for the return of a dog that bit a police officer during a shoplifting investigation June 23.

Sheri Frisch filed a petition in Island County Superior Court June 29 for the return of a seized dog. The petition states that the Oak Harbor police are planning on having the dog, a “bull-boxer mix” named Koda, euthanized because of the incident that occurred when Frisch’s family member had the dog out in public.

Oak Harbor Police Chief Kevin Dresker, however, said there are no immediate plans for euthanizing the dog, which had previously been deemed a “dangerous dog” by animal control because of an incident last year and was supposed to be muzzled in public. The dog’s fate will ultimately be decided through a legal process, he said. The dog is currently in protective custody.

State law lays out a process by which a dog can be deemed dangerous and potentially “destroyed” in a humane manner, as well as criminal penalties for the owner of a dog that bites a person or a domestic animal.

Frisch’s petition and the police report offer different versions of the event.

According to a police report, officers responded to a report of a woman shoplifting at a Highway 20 business. The suspect, 28-year-old Ashley Allman, was located in the Home Depot garden area with the dog, which is described as a large pit bull in the report.

As officers tried to arrest Allman, the dog lunged at an officer, slipping out of its “slip lead nose loop” and biting the officer on the arm, the report states. Allman pulled away from the officer and led the dog, which continued to growl and bark, into the parking lot, ignoring the officers’ commands to stop, an officer wrote.

Allman allegedly continued to walk around the parking lot, keeping the officers at bay with the aggressive dog, but finally relented and was taken into custody, the report states. She admitted to stealing cat food and a cable tie from another store and that she knew the dog had been declared dangerous last year, the report states.

The officer was examined at the hospital for the dog bite, which punctured the skin and caused pain.

Prosecutors charged Allman in Island County Superior Court June 28 with assault in the third degree, obstructing a law enforcement officer and theft in the third degree.

Frisch, on the other hand, claims that Allman was placing the dog in her car when the officer grabbed her by the arm and the dog reacted to “not only an invasion of his space but an attack on one of his owners,” the petition states. Frisch wrote that the bite wasn’t severe because the dog had on a strap muzzle that limited how far its jaw could open.

Frisch claimed that the officer punched the dog in the head, threw Allman to the ground and planted his knee on the small of her back even though she wasn’t resisting.

Frisch wrote that she tried to get body camera footage to prove her version of events but was told by the police that she needed to file a public records request. She claimed that she won’t get the evidence before the dog is put down, but Dresker said the dog is not on a “fast track” to be euthanized. The prosecutor’s office reported that it’s unclear if the dog needs to be kept in custody until the criminal case is resolved, which could take months.