Oh, the betrayal of a friend, it can sting the soul mightily.
When man’s best friend turns on him, the pain inflicted is more than just emotional.
That was the case for a duck hunter in Bear River Bird Refuge north of Salt Lake City who was accidentally shot by a dog. Little did he know the ducks weren’t the only ones in danger.
During the outing with some family members and Piper the hunting dog, Robert Cottingham got out of their boat to retrieve a bird in the water. I thought that was the dog’s job, so maybe they were doing this whole hunting thing backwards. Anyway, Cottingham had placed his gun across the bow of their boat. Piper jumped back into the boat and landed on Cottingham’s 12-gauge shotgun. In the canine’s excitement, he somehow triggered the weapon, which fired and hit the retrieving hunter in the back side from about six feet away. Fortunately, a decoy in the boat caught most of the blast and saved the hunter from a much more serious wound.
They called 911 and walked to a nearby road where they were met by EMTs. At the hospital, Cottingham had 27 pellets removed from his buttocks. The victim will have some permanent souvenirs of his outing as doctors were unable to remove several more pellets. Now if a man shot in the head sneezes out the bullet, it makes me wonder how Cottingham might get rid of a few of those pellets.
This case reminds me of another time a duck hunter was betrayed by his marksman of a dog. Wait, there was also this time a dog shot its owner. I’m seeing a pattern forming here.
