Deputy shoots dog, tells Animal Control to crawl under the trailer to retrieve it. They don't; dog suffers for hours as a result.

GEORGIA -- The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office says a deputy fatally shot a dog that charged at him Saturday, but Lucky was actually found alive that night and is now recovering at a veterinary hospital.

Lucky’s owner found the female pointer-mix under a neighbor’s trailer at the Skyview Mobile Home Park on Houston Road a few hours after the shooting, said Nikkie Brooks, who works with the animal rescue group Furever After Rescue.

Brooks drove Lucky to Southwood Animal Hospital in Warner Robins where she had surgery for her bullet wounds.

“She’s doing really good today,” Brooks said Monday.

Hospital staff sutured four wounds and removed a bullet lodged in Lucky’s body, said Caitlin Martin, a vet technician.

Martin described Lucky as being about 2 years old and weighing about 40 pounds. Lucky was shot in the shoulder area, but somehow the bullet did not hit any major organs.

“Everything was avoided,” Martin said. “I don’t know how, because it was right near her chest and lung area.”

Brooks and the hospital staff dubbed her Lucky for obvious reasons, though her owner called her Bama Junior before Saturday’s shooting.

The Bibb sheriff’s deputy who shot Lucky was responding to a call of three aggressive dogs barking and chasing children at the mobile home park, according to the Bibb sheriff’s incident report.

“I found myself cornered,” the deputy wrote in his report. “The dogs stayed aggressive, then one of the dogs charged as he got within a couple of feet from me.”

The deputy said he fired his weapon and struck the dog in the back. As the dog fell, he fired a second round into its side.

“The dog stood up and started towards me as I fired a third round into the side,” according to the deputy’s report.

Deputies were unable to retrieve the dog after it ran under a trailer, the report said, but Macon-Bibb Animal Welfare was called to remove the three dogs from the scene. There were no reports of any of the dogs biting anyone.

Animal Welfare could not immediately confirm Monday afternoon how many dogs were picked up by the agency.

Brooks, who was contacted by Lucky’s owner to help the injured dog, said she disputes the official sheriff’s office account.

“I don’t believe she is a real aggressive dog,” she said.

Brooks’ daughter created a Facebook page called “Prayers for Lucky” to share updates and coordinate donations for veterinarian bills.

The shooting was about 3:30 p.m. Saturday, but Lucky was not found until later in the evening. Southwood Animal Hospital said the dog arrived there about 10 p.m.

The sheriff’s office is looking into the case to make sure similar situations are handled differently in the future, Sheriff David Davis said Monday evening.

“Like any other use of force situation, if you’re being threatened with injury or someone else is being threatened with injury, you have to do whatever you can to neutralize the threat, and that’s what happened,” Davis said. “My concern is the follow-up as far as making sure that the dog was not suffering.”

(Macon.com - Feb 10, 2014)