DES MOINES (AP) -- A police chief in southwestern Iowa was charged Thursday with animal cruelty for killing seven dogs without their owner's consent.

Hamburg Police Chief Nick Millsap is on paid leave after being arrested and released on his promise to appear in court next month.

According to court records, Millsap removed the dogs on Sept. 15 from a rental home after the landlord complained that the dogs were damaging the property. Millsap maintains that the dogs were malnourished, sick and hot.

Seven counts of animal cruelty were filed in Fremont County by Shelly Sedlak, an assistant Pottawattamie County attorney appointed as a special prosecutor. Sedlak said Millsap shot the dogs and crushed the head of one puppy when it didn't die of the gunshot.

He faces up to two years in prison on each count.

The dogs' owner, Elizabeth Brock, has said she was in jail at the time and had left the dogs in her daughter's care.

According to court records, Millsap removed the dogs from the home and consulted with the mayor and a veterinarian through a county dispatcher. Afterward, Millsap took the dogs to the country, shot them and threw them in a ditch.

Neither Millsap nor Brock could be reached for comment Thursday.

Millsap has said previously that Mayor Terry Holliman told him to destroy the dogs.

Holliman blamed Fremont County, specifically the dispatcher he said failed to communicate clearly with Millsap. He also said there was a deputy who told Millsap the dogs should be shot.

"As a city, we rely on the Fremont County Sheriff's Department, and that's what our officer did," Holliman said Thursday. "He called dispatch to get hold of the vet clinic and was not given accurate information, then told by a deputy and the dispatcher that it sounded like the dogs needed the big bang."

The Sheriff's Department disputes Holliman's description of the conversation, which county officials said they taped and submitted to the special prosecutor.

"We work with a veterinarian and our policy is to take the dogs to a veterinarian and then try to find a place for the dogs," said Kevin Aistrope, chief deputy with the Sheriff's Department.

Earlier this week, a Fremont County judge ordered the city and Millsap to pay more than $3,500 to Brock.

The judge called Millsap's actions "outrageous" and "utterly intolerable."

"Officer Millsap had to be aware that his conduct would probably cause severe emotional distress to the dogs' owner, yet he acted anyway," the ruling stated.

The judge also ruled the dogs were not in violation of local laws because they had been vaccinated. Hamburg's laws call for the animals to be impounded and the owners be notified before the dogs can be destroyed.

The Sheriff's Department began investigating the incident after the Humane Society of the United States sent it a letter about the shootings.

Peter Wood, a manager for the Humane Society, said it was a worthwhile task. "I think it's a victory in that the laws that have been enacted to protect animals are being enforced, regardless of whether that person is chief of police or average Joe."