A dog’s thick skull may have saved its life after it was shot by a Kamloops Mountie on Christmas Day.
Kamloops RCMP Staff Sgt. Grant Learned said the pit bull-Labrador cross was shot in the head at almost point-blank range when the animal, which had been restrained, reacted to police putting handcuffs on its owner.
Three officers had been called to a house in the 1200-block of Kimberley Crescent near Halston Avenue in North Kamloops just after midnight on Christmas morning.
Police were responding to a report of a distraught woman wielding an axe.
Learned said the woman calmed quickly once officers arrived but, as they prepared to cuff her, he said, the dog “continued to growl, bark and bare its teeth” as it tried to get to the officer.
Learned said the shooting took place when the dog’s head was almost between the officer’s legs.
“He fired a single shot downward at the dog’s head from nearly point-blank range,” Learned said.
“When the dog momentarily stopped, the officer backed down the narrow hallway and started backing up the basement stairs, keeping the dog at gunpoint.
“Amazingly, the dog then continued toward the officer and started up the stairs before it fell onto its side, got up again and subsequently went into a vacant basement room.”
The dog was taken by bylaws officers to the Riverside Small Animal Hospital on Lorne Street in downtown Kamloops, where it was treated by Dr. Noreen Carrigan.
Once there, Learned said, Carrigan discovered the bullet had not penetrated the dog’s skull, but had travelled under the skin around it and left the animal’s body from the neck area, where it fell to the floor.
Learned was told the dog required a few stitches and was kept at the clinic for observation, but is expected to make a full recovery.
