In a new interview, former Teen Mom stars Jenelle Evans and David Eason insist they were simply protecting their children by killing the family dog.
Four months after Jenelle first accused her husband of ending her French bulldog Nugget's life, the reality TV stars have yet to recover both personally and professionally from the scandal. In light of the incident, MTV fired Jenelle from Teen Mom 2 and the couple temporary lost custody of their kids. Now, David says he "still thinks about [the dog] every day" but does not regret his actions.
"It was a situation where my daughter, her health, her safety was in danger," he told People, referencing 2-year-old Ensley. "It upsets me just as much as anybody who doesn't even know Nugget may think they're upset."
Eason continued, "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."
Instead of attempting to re-home Nugget, David said he felt there was no other option than to "euthanize" the animal.
"If you call the authorities at that point," David said, "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."
Up until now, David has not directly addressed Nugget's killing in such detail. In July, authorities closed their investigation into the matter due to lack of evidence.
As for Jenelle's perspective, she is certain the public just misunderstands her husband and his set of circumstances.
"David has grown up in the country lifestyle—he hunts, he fishes," the 27-year-old explained told the outlet. "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."
Jenelle also confirmed they "got over" the drama after they attended counseling and David completed an anger management course. "We've been working out really well ever since," she noted.
What's more, Jenelle said she is confident David won't "repeat the same mistakes he's made before." Recalling a similar incident, she said that after her pit bull recently killed one of their pigs, David decided to "give the dog away" as opposed to taking matters into his own hands.
"He didn't realize how big that was going to be if it did get out," she further defended. "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."