ANACORTES — The owner of two dogs shot and left to die in Heart Lake Park last spring has confessed to shooting the two boxers.

Travis Carl McDermitt pleaded guilty Friday to reckless endangerment, a gross misdemeanor and second-degree animal cruelty, a misdemeanor in Skagit County Superior Court. McDermitt was sentenced to two days in jail. He was also ordered to pay the veterinarian costs of the female dog that survived a gunshot wound to her back. Her canine brother died from two shots to his head.

McDermitt is in the U.S. Army and is stationed at the Fort Lewis Army Base in Pierce County.

“It was a pretty dumb thing to do,” Prosecuting attorney Sloan Johnson. “There are other ways to get rid of an animal.”

The male dog was found dead the night he was shot, but his surviving sister wasn’t discovered until some people walking in the park the next morning found her in desperate need of care.

Johnson said not only was McDermitt irresponsible with his animals, but also endangered the public.

It’s “really, really dangerous” to fire a gun in a park, he said.

After the shooting, witnesses told police that McDermitt seemed aggravated with his two boxers after they destroyed drapes while left alone in an Anacortes motel room. Another witness said McDermitt offered him the dogs at Heart Lake Park. Court documents say, McDermitt told the witness he was going to shoot the boxers.

Later, Anacortes Police Officer Mike Hansen and his family adopted the wounded 55-pound brindle boxer and named her Clover for her luck in surviving the gunshot. Clover is mellow and cuddly with her new Mount Vernon family, which includes Hanson’s wife, and their two children.

• Tahlia Ganser can be reached at 360-416-2148 or at .