A dog managed to fire a gun and wound his owner in an accidental shooting in Memphis on Monday, police said.
The 39-year-old victim was relaxing and talking with a female friend on his bed when the dog jumped onto the bed, authorities said. The dog’s paw got stuck in the trigger guard and hit the trigger, discharging the gun.
Police said the victim was grazed in the left thigh. Officers later found a single spent shell casing on the floor. The man was treated on scene and later taken to a medical center for additional aid. His injury was not deemed critical.
The victim’s female friend, who police have not publicly identified, left the scene after the shooting.
“When officers asked the victim where the weapon was he advised that the female friend took it when she left,” police said.
A Memphis Police Department spokesperson said he had no further information to offer.
CBS News affiliate WREG identified the dog as Oreo, a 1-year-old pit bull. A friend of the victim told WREG that the pit bull is really friendly, and that his friend was fine after the shooting.
There have been several canine-related gun incidents in recent years. In 2023, a man was killed during a weekend hunting trip in Kansas when a dog stepped on a rifle and discharged the gun.
During a 2017 incident, a pheasant hunter in north-central Iowa was accidentally shot and wounded when a dog stepped on a shotgun’s trigger guard and the gun fired.
And in 2018, a New Mexico man told CBS affiliate KRQE-TV that he was shot by his dog, a 120-pound rottweiler mix named Charlie, while the pair were in the man’s truck. The pup’s paw got caught in the rifle’s trigger, KRQE reported. The man was shot in the back, and had several bones broken in the shooting.
