Jenelle Evans and David Eason are trying to gain back the good graces of the public after a months-long publicity nightmare. In May, it was reported that David killed the family dog, Nugget, after she bit the couple's two-year-old daughter, Ensley, on the face. Jenelle posted about Nugget's death on her Instagram and she was clearly distraught.
“Nugget… I’m crying everyday. I love you so much and I’m so sorry. I’m speechless,” she wrote. “You were my sidekick and knew the moment I felt bad and would cuddle with me. You still had a lot to learn and a lot to grow from your lessons. Everyday I wake up you’re not here, when I come home you’re not here, when I go to bed… you’re not here. You’re gone forever and there’s no coming back.”
David seemingly confirmed Nugget's death on his own Instagram page, which has since been deleted.
“I don’t give a damn what animal bites my baby on the face… whether it be your dog or mine, a dog is a dog and I don’t put up with that s— at all,” he wrote. “I’m all about protecting my family, it is my life’s mission. Some people are worth killing or dying for and my family means that much to me. You can hate me all you want but this isn’t the first time the dog bit Ensley aggressively. The only person that can judge whether or not a animal is a danger to MY CHILD is ME.”
This prompted months of speculation, allegations, and court hearings. David and Jenelle were fired by MTV (although David was fired long before this), they lost custody of their kids, and they were thoroughly investigated. The couple maintained that they did nothing wrong, and Jenelle even went so far as they made up the whole thing for publicity.
“Jenelle advised that she was inside with her children at the time of the alleged event,” a report from the Columbus County Sheriff's Office read. “She advised that she never heard or saw anything to indicate that David shot her dog. Jenelle advised that ‘She don’t know where the dog is.’ She also advised that ‘I don’t know if she was shot or killed or not.' Jenelle stated that the reason she filed the animal cruelty report was for the publicity and because she did not know where her dog was.”
The Confession
But despite Jenelle's strange stories, the couple is now admitting the David did shoot the dog, and they're trying to make it seem like he's really upset about it.
The reality TV couple appeared on PeopleTV's People Now, and opened up about the whole thing.
“It was a situation where my daughter, her health, her safety was in danger,” David explained.“This was something that nobody wants to ever have to do. The dog was aggressive. Yes, she might not be huge or whatever, but you know when a dog bites a child on the face more than one time, then it should never be around the child again. If you give the dog up for adoption, one day it’s going to be around children again.”
So why not call 911 or animal control to deal with it? Easy—money.
“If you call the authorities at that point, the law says the dog has to be euthanized. I’m not going to pay anyone to euthanize my dog when I could do it myself.”
Considering Jenelle and David are making MTV money, I don't think "we didn't want to spend the money" is really a valid excuse here, but that's just me.
Although he viciously killed Nugget, David fought back tears as he talked about the late dog.
“I mean, I loved that dog,” David said. “I still think about her every day. It’s really hard for me. A lot of people put me down for it, they hate me for it, but like I said it was not something I wanted to do.”
Then Jenelle chimed in, and said the whole thing was a "private family issue that happened within our household.” They were hoping it wasn't going to be a big deal. They were wrong.
“We didn’t want it getting out in the news at all,” Jenelle said.
So how did it get out? Jenelle said that she told one of her friends about the incident, and that person called Nathan Griffith, who Jenelle shares a 5-year-old son with.
“Nathan called the cops and said, ‘Check on my son.’ TMZ got a hold of that 911 call and that’s how it got brought up in the news,” Jenelle said.
Jenelle didn't stop there, either. She also defended her husband's actions, saying it was how he was brought up.
“David has grown up in the country lifestyle — he hunts, he fishes," she defended. "The way he was raised is really different than a lot of other places. We understand that people ares scared of the whole gun thing, [but] they just don’t understand it from David’s perspective. His father taught him, ‘Don’t let any animal hurt you’ … and he just thought what he was doing was best. He does realize that what he did was wrong. And he does realize that he shouldn’t have done it. And he said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realize how bad it was going to hurt everyone.’"
David was then asked if Nugget should have been re-homed, instead of shot in the back woods behind the family house with the kids home.
“I don’t think the dog should have been re-homed, no. Regardless of what I did, the dog would have been euthanized. … The law says if you don’t euthanize a dog that bites somebody, within a reasonable amount of time, you are held liable for neglect,” he said.
Now, Jenelle was upset that “instead of conversating [sic] with me before it happened, he just did it.” But once again she defended his actions.
“He didn’t realize how big that was going to be if it did get out," she tried to explain. "He also isn’t used to social media or being on TV or anything like that. I’ve been around it since 2009. I know my actions from the past have made me learn not to do those mistakes again. David is learning from everything that is happening.”
I don't buy for a second that he didn't know how big of a deal it would been, but again...that's just me.
At the time of Nugget's death, Jenelle admitted that she was considering divorce from David, but it seems like that's not longer on the table.
“I have [forgiven him], and we went to co-parenting counseling sessions — it’s kind of like a marriage session in one," she explained. "And he’s also taken anger management classes; he took six classes, completed the whole course. So I mean, he did do things to try to better himself. We’ve been working out really well ever since. We got over it."
Jenelle then tried to showcase how David is learning, because he had the opportunity to shoot another one of the family dogs and didn't.
“Actually, my pitbull Jax, he actually killed one of our pigs recently. So instead of David saying, ‘Well let me euthanize the dog, let’s just give the dog away.’ So we gave the dog away instead … So he’s even taken the initiative to correct his actions and not repeat the same mistakes he’s made before,” she pointed out.
Now, I'm not saying that David and Jenelle haven't learned their lesson, it's just interesting that the stories have changed so many times. First he did it, then he didn't, then it was for the press, then they didn't want it to get out, and now it's all behind them. As long as it doesn't ever happen again, I guess it doesn't matter.
