A man in Memphis, Tennessee, was accidentally shot by his own dog earlier this month.
The incident, which occurred in the early hours of the morning on March 10, came as a nasty shock when the man was sleeping, according to WHBQ-TV in Memphis.
The man was identified as Jerald Kirkwood by WJW-TV in Cleveland.
The one-year-old pit bull known as Oreo jumped up to join the man and his girlfriend as they were asleep.
But the animal’s paw jammed in the trigger.
The gun fired and shot off a bullet that grazed Kirkwood’s left thigh.
The girlfriend said that “the dog is a playful dog, and he likes to jump around and stuff like that, and it just went off,” per WHBQ-TV.
Dominique Dillion, a reporter for the outlet, asked whether the gunshot or the dog jumping on the bed woke up the woman.
“The gunshot,” the girlfriend replied, reportedly laughing.
Have you ever heard of a dog shooting a man before?
“Yeah, a combination of the two.”
The pair now plan on using the safety feature on their firearms before going to bed.
“Keep the safety on or use a trigger lock,” the girlfriend advised.
Kirkwood is expected to recover, while police classified the event as an accidental injury.
A friend of Kirkwood’s told WJW-TV that “there was a freak incident, and the dog jumped up and caused the gun to discharge.”
The friend said that the pit bull is usually friendly.
Officers spoke with Kirkwood after the injury, after which he offered the account of the accident, according to WMC-TV.
Investigators recovered shell casings from the floor of the scene, while Kirkwood said his girlfriend took the firearm when she left.
An accident of this nature does not appear to be completely without precedent.
Two years ago, a Kansas man named Joseph Smith was shot and killed in the front seat of a vehicle after a German shepherd belonging to the car’s owner stepped on a hunting rifle in the backseat, causing the weapon to fire, according to a report from ABC News.
“The stock of the gun was in the back seat, and the barrel was laying on the console facing the victim,” Sumner County Undersheriff Mike Westmoreland told the outlet at the time.
The bullet hit Smith in the back and he died at the scene.
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