A Tennessee man was taken to the hospital after he told police his dog shot him in the leg while he was lying in bed with a friend in the early morning on Monday, Memphis Police said in a press release sent to HuffPost.
The man, identified by multiple local news outlets as Jerald Kirkwood, was lying in bed with his friend when his 1-year-old pit bull, Oreo, jumped in to join them at around 4 a.m., according to the press release.
However, Oreo reportedly got his paw stuck in the trigger guard of a loaded gun on the bed and ended up firing a shot that grazed his owner’s thigh.
The friend left the scene after the shooting and took the firearm with her, police said in the release. She told FOX affiliate WHBQ that Oreo is a “playful dog” who “likes to jump around,” and said it was a combination of the gunshot and Oreo jumping that woke her up.
When officers arrived, they found a spent shell casing on the floor, according to the press release. Medical responders treated Kirkwood’s wounds before taking him to a local hospital in non-critical condition.
Police classified the incident as an accidental injury.
Kirkwood is not the first person to report being shot by their dog. The Guardian reported that in 2018, an Iowa man was shot in the leg by his pit bull-Labrador mix. And in 2023, a hunter in Kansas was killed when his dog stood on his hunting rifle in the back seat of his car, causing it to fire a round.