{"id":36034,"date":"2025-11-16T20:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T20:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/36034\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T20:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T20:33:09","slug":"when-pets-pull-triggers-dog-shoots-owner-in-bizarre-pennsylvania-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/36034\/","title":{"rendered":"When Pets Pull Triggers: Dog Shoots Owner in Bizarre Pennsylvania Accident"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>“Juno” by Nathaniel Currier, born Roxbury, MA 1813-died New York City 1888 is marked with CC0 1.0.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania Man Injured After Dog Causes Shotgun to Discharge, Police Say<\/p>\n

The Incident in Shillington, Pa., Highlights Firearm Safety Concerns and Is One of Over 1,100 Unintentional Shootings in the U.S. This Year<\/p>\n

A 53-year-old man in Shillington, Pa., is recovering after being accidentally shot in the back on Tuesday night by an unusual assailant: his dog. The Shillington Police Department reported that the incident occurred after the man placed a shotgun he had been cleaning onto a bed, and the animal jumped up, causing the weapon to fire.<\/p>\n

Officers responded to a 911 call from the man\u2019s son, who reported that his father had been shot by an unknown assailant. However, upon investigation, police determined the shooter was the family\u2019s four-legged pet.<\/p>\n

Cpl. Michael Schoone of the Shillington Police Department told WFMZ, a local news station, that the man had been cleaning the shotgun before setting it down. \u201cA dog had jumped up onto the bed, causing the shotgun to go off, which openly struck the male,\u201d Corporal Schoone stated.<\/p>\n

The exact mechanism of the discharge remains under investigation. \u201cHe\u2019s not sure what stage of cleaning he was in at the time, so it\u2019s unsure if the dog\u2019s paw may have gotten caught inside the trigger and the safety was off or if there was some sort of manufacturer malfunction,\u201d Corporal Schoone added. While police are still investigating, he said, \u201cIt looks like it was an accident.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man, who was not identified by the authorities, was treated at Reading Hospital. His condition was not made public. Police did not release any information about the dog, including its breed.<\/p>\n

The incident was recorded by the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, which has tracked 1,156 unintentional shootings in the United States in 2025 as of this week.<\/p>\n

While bizarre, such incidents are not unprecedented. Similar dog-involved shootings, while rare, have been documented in recent years, as published in The New York Times. In March, a Memphis man reported being grazed by a bullet when his puppy\u2019s paw got stuck in a gun\u2019s trigger. In 2018, a former Louisiana State University football player\u2019s leg was amputated after his Labrador retriever stepped on a shotgun during a hunting trip, causing it to fire. A similar incident occurred in Utah in 2011, when a duck hunter was shot after his dog stepped on a shotgun.<\/p>\n

The shooting in Shillington has drawn renewed attention from gun safety advocates, who point to such events as stark examples of the risks posed by unsecured firearms.<\/p>\n

Based on the original article published by The New York Times, available at: https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/11\/14\/us\/dog-shoots-owner-pennsylvania.html<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Juno” by Nathaniel Currier, born Roxbury, MA 1813-died New York City 1888 is marked with CC0 1.0. Pennsylvania…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[22352,22353,22354,22355,22356,28,30,29,11889,2791,1114,22357,22358],"class_list":["post-36034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-accidental-shooting","tag-dog-accidentally-shoots-man","tag-firearm-safety","tag-gun-safety","tag-gun-violence-archive","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-pennsylvania-shooting","tag-reading-hospital","tag-shillington","tag-shotgun-accident","tag-unintentional-shooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}