Dogs possibly shot with BB
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Anonymous
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I suspect my dogs were shot with a BB gun over the weekend. They were in my fenced backyard (1/2 acre lot), I was out with them but had my back turned to walk back inside. All of the sudden my beagle yelps and lies down cowering. I thought maybe she had stepped on a sharp stick or something, I searched her paws, legs and body but didn’t find anything. She recovered after about 30 minutes and was a little skittish but mostly back to normal. A couple hours later I notice a small gouge on my lab’s leg. Could be from anything – he does run around a lot and could have nicked it on our stone wall or one of the bushes. At bedtime, I notice dried blood on the inside of my beagle’s ear (like on the inside of the floppy ear), and it appears that something punctured her floppy ear with just a tiny entry on the outer side. I can’t believe I didn’t check her ear when she yelped, but I thought it must have been something she stepped on. This gets me thinking… odd that both are hurt, and there’s nothing in the backyard that would puncture her ear like that.
We are on a corner lot, and the dogs could have only been hit by neighbors behind us, or across the street from the side of our house. The house behind us is a lawyer couple with a young adult son, roughly 21-23 years old, but we don’t know them. Across the street from the backyard are two families – one with a two high schoolers (10th, 11th), and one with a middle school (8th) and high schooler (11th). We know these families, our kids are roughly the same age. We suspect it could be the 8th grader – no real evidence expect he’s a bit of a punk (example - slapped the Halloween candy bowl out of my husband’s hands when he was in 6th grade, plays street hockey in front of our house which was fine when they were little but an 8th grader swinging a hockey stick by our cars is concerning, so we asked them to stop playing in front of our house). I can’t imagine anyone else would be walking around the neighborhood and shooting dogs. We have a camera in the back, but it didn’t catch anything as there are several trees along our fenceline. We are going to add another camera to give us better angles. I sent a text to both families that we know, telling them what happened and asked them to watch out for their dogs as well – no accusation at all, just played dumb and said to keep an eye out. My kids are freaked out and don’t want our dogs to be outside much. I understand their concern and share it, but its crappy to feel like our dogs are not safe in our own backyard. FWIW, my dogs don’t spend hours outside barking – they are usually only out there for 5-10 minutes at a time, and only bark briefly when a neighbor passes, like an alert bark and then they stop. The neighbor behind us has huskies that are out on their enclosed deck ALL THE TIME and bark for hours, including at night. What would you do? We don’t have any proof, and are merely guessing they were shot based on the puncture to my beagle’s ear. We looked for BBs but did not find any. |
Anonymous
| I dunno, that seems like a very big leap to me. Dogs are weird, bugs are coming out... |
Anonymous
We’ve lived here over 10 years, the beagle is 10 years old. She’s never had a puncture to her ear before or anything like this. Been through many different bugs, like cicadas. Not warm enough for snakes, plus only one puncture. Not big enough to be from a squirrel- plus I would have heard a commotion if it was anything like a squirrel or bird (lab would have definitely joined the fray). |
Anonymous
Okay well then, I don't know, call the police? Form a posse? Get that one kid who slapped a candy bowl two years ago and once played hockey near your cars and hang him by his ears? You're obviously convinced, so what is the question? |
Anonymous
Looking for advice from people who have been through something like this. You obviously don’t have any advice. And he didn’t play hockey by our cars once. It was more like 200+ times. We spoke nicely to him when he started getting more aggressive around our cars and asked him to tone it down, when he didn’t after several times, almost damaging our cars, we had to ask him to stop. And yes, the hockey puck hit our cars at least three times that we know of, and he slapped one of our cars with his stick. |
Anonymous
omg well in that case, yeah, I also think he shot your dog. |
Anonymous
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I believe it. Not in DC area, but a boy with a bb gun was shooting dogs who happened to get loose in the neighborhood.
I’d set up cameras in the yard. Smart of you to email the neighbors. One of them must be aware that her/his kid is trouble and disturbed. |
Anonymous
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If someone was shooting your dogs with bbs while you were outside I think you’d have seen/heard them. They don’t have a huge range, and do make some noise, right? The person would have had to have been standing not too far away to have hit the dogs.
I think your plan for cameras is fine. I wouldn’t assume someone shot your dogs, though. It’s one possibility, but there are others. You could also take your beagle to the vet and ask whether the wound looks like a bb - they have probably seen it before and can confirm or deny, |
Anonymous
| Did you take your dogs to the vet? Wouldn’t they be able to say if it was a BB or not? |
Anonymous
| I think you’ve done what you can with the neighbors. It’s also possible that someone was driving by and did that. You’ll need to be vigilant with your dogs and be outside with them when they’re outside, don’t leave them alone. |
Anonymous
Thanks! I will reach out to the vet. BBs are actually fairly quiet - just a small pop sound. With how windy it’s been it would be easy to not hear it. Plus I wasn’t listening for that sound. I hope I’m wrong about it being a BB gun. I really have no idea how her ear could have been hurt like that. |
Anonymous
| It's clear they shot your dog and stole your mails. Hang them. |
Anonymous
| A BB likely wouldn’t have broken the skin. An airsoft might have, but you would have heard it. |
Anonymous
| Devil's advocate here. You have 2 dogs, both have minor nondescript injuries, you didn't see anything happening, what makes you think that the dogs didn't cause each other's injuries? Even dogs that generally get along will occasionally scuffle or just play a bit too rough. |
Anonymous
This wasn't "bugs." I have little doubt OP's suspicions are correct. OP, if I were you the best thing would be for me to never find out who did it. Because I'd end up in jail over it. |