A Muskogee woman is suing the city after she says police used excessive force against her and her dog. The case goes back to April first of last year. The dog was shot and killed outside the woman's apartment.

In the lawsuit filed last week, the woman claims officers unlawfully handcuffed her, pushed her down and hit her. She says what happened to her dog led to the legal action.

Just outside apartment 19, Yvonne Todd's six-year-old Saint Bernard died, she says at the hands of police.

"I said 'Don't shoot my dog,' And just like that, he shot her."

Officers came to the apartment after Yvonne had an argument with her boyfriend.

"Yeah, we got loud, just hollering back and forth," she says.

Yvonne says she opened the door to police with Shelby by her side.

"The officer just snatched my arm and pulled me out of the door because I was in my door and he pulled me out."

Yvonne says the dog barked, but did not attack. And, one of the officers shot the dog in the head.

"Is that the way they react to everything, just shoot? Is it because she was a big dog?"

Those are questions we didn't get a chance to ask police. They would not comment, nor release the results of an internal investigation that followed the shooting.

Corrine O'Day is Yvonne's attorney. She says the lawsuit focuses on the police detainment outside the apartment where the dog was shot.

"I know it would mean a lot to my plaintiff to have some changes made that other avenues can be taken before a dog is shot," O'Day says.

"To not take the time and consider what they were doing to somebody's life, they should have taken steps, they could have maced both of us if we were that wrong in what we were doing," Yvonne says.

Yvonne says she was not arrested that night. One thing police did provide us with is one page of a police report, but it makes no mention of a shooting.

The city and four individual officers are named in the lawsuit. It does not specify how much money Todd is suing for.