FRANKLIN—A North Carolina man is behind bars after threatening to shoot a couple’s dogs, said Capt. Tim Whitt, spokesman for the Franklin Police Department.

On Tuesday night, a man was out walking his dogs, a German Shepard mix and a pit bull, at the Days Inn on Armory Drive, when another man allegedly approached him with a firearm in his hand. The suspect then threatened to shoot one of the dogs.

In the morning the dog walker’s girlfriend went out to walk the dogs, and the same man, again brandishing what appeared to be a Walther CP, chased after her and threatened to shoot the dogs.

She decided to take action and told the hotel manager, who called the police.

An investigation led the officers to an upstairs room where they found Matthew Brown, 21, of Sanford, North Carolina, and took him into custody without incident in connection to this incident.

Officers also found the weapon, a replica Walther CP that was actually a BB gun.

Brown was charged with brandishing a firearm and remanded to Western Tidewater Regional Jail on a $1,500 secured bond.

Whitt said no complaints had been filed against the young pit bull and the German Shepard mix, and that both had been on a leash during the incidents, so he was not sure what would cause the man to reportedly threaten the dogs.

“The dogs were not attacking. They were not growling,” Whitt said. “They were just out for a walk.”

Whitt also warned against brandishing replica firearms. He said people should not pull them out in public and use them to intimidate people, nor should the weapons be pointed at people. Without examining the weapons a person can’t tell if it is a real gun or not, and people have been shot for pulling replica BB guns on others including police officers, Whitt said.

“In a split second we can not tell if it’s a real gun or not,” he said. “We have to treat it like a real gun if it looks like a real gun. So we are educating people and children to be responsible with them and treat them like they are firearms.”