PORTAGE | A Hobart man has pleaded guilty to shooting and killing two dogs as they were chasing deer in Liberty Township just more than two years ago.

Harry Keene was sentenced by Porter Superior Judge Julia Jent to 15 days of community service with Porter County PACT, a year of unsupervised probation and restitution in an amount that has yet to be determined, Porter County Deputy Prosecutor Mark Acevedo said.

News of the plea came as an unpleasant surprise to the owner of the dogs, Melisa Culbertson, according to her attorney Peter Boyles.

She does not feel the sentence is adequate and was not notified about the plea, which kept her from making a victim's statement at the time of sentencing, Boyles said.

A telephone message left for Culbertson was not returned Wednesday.

Acevedo said he did not know Keene was going to plead guilty to the two misdemeanor counts of criminal mischief before he did so during Tuesday's hearing. The hearing was scheduled in preparation of a trial later this month.

Keene's attorney, Gregory Sarkisian, said his client thought he was doing the right thing when he shot the dogs because the animals were in the process of attacking a young doe.

The shootings were investigated by Bob Cauffman, conservation officer with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, who has said Keene told him the dogs were chasing deer.

State law does not allow a person to shoot a dog while in the process of chasing or harassing wildlife, he said.

Culbertson has said the dogs ran off her property Nov. 28, 2004, and were found dead the following day. The dogs were a 7-year-old Great Pyrenees and a 5-month-old Siberian husky.