Dogs may be man's best friend, but one dog sure didn't show it on Saturday when he shot his owner -- albeit accidentally.
One Florida man told police that he was traveling in his truck when his dog knocked a gun on the floor of his truck and shot him in the leg, according to a report issued to Highlands Today.
Sebring, Fla. Police ruled the shooting as accidental, and the man was not seriously injured.
The police Cmdr. Steve Carr told Highlands Today that police neither arrested nor detained the dog, pending the investigation. He added that he had never heard of a case like this.
Gregory Dale Lanier, 35, the victim, said he did not know the gun in his pickup truck was loaded. He said that he was driving on State Road 17 North "when his dog kicked his unloaded .380 pistol causing it to fire and the bullet struck his leg. Lanier said he heard boom, saw smoke and felt a burning in his leg," he told Highlands Today. He was also surprised that the gun, in fact, was a 9 mm weapon, Highlands Today reported.
The incident isn't the only recent bizarre shooting in Florida. Last week, a woman in St. Petersburg was wounded when she was shot by a friend's oven, The Sun reported.
Unusual as it is, this isn't the first time a dog shot a man. In Nov. 2011, a Brigham City, Utah man and a friend were duck hunting when a dog inside their boat jumped on the bow and stepped on the gun, shooting his owner in the buttocks. Medical crews had to remove 27 pellets of birdshot from the man.
"(The dog) did something to make the gun discharge," Box Elder County Sheriff Chief Deputy Kevin Potter told KSL.com. "I don't know if the safety device was on. It's not impossible the dog could have taken it off safety."
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
