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'My Dog Shot Me', Man's Puppy Playtime Ends With Bullet Wound

FORT DODGE, Iowa (CBS Local/AP) —An Iowa man was roughhousing with his dog when playtime turned extremely painful for the 51-year-old.

"My dog shot me," Richard Remme, of Fort Dodge told The Messenger newspaper.

Remme told police he was playing with his dog, Balew, on the couch and tossed the animal off his lap.

"And I carry in a belly band, under my bib overalls. And apparently he bumped the safety one time, and when he bounded back over one of his toes went right down into the trigger guard," Remme explained. "It has a trigger safety as well as a thumb safety, and he managed to hit both of them, and it discharged and went into my leg, did no major damage to anything."

Remme didn't even feel the shot in his leg at first — he only felt a painful burn on his belly initially. Then he saw his pantleg was turning purple, according to The Messenger.

"I'm looking around to see where it went to, and I realized it went in my leg. That's when I called 911," Remme said.

He was released from the hospital that afternoon, Remme said, and checked in with the VA.

"They want me to follow up later with a surgeon, to see if later we need to possibly look at removing the bullet."

Fort Dodge Police Chief Roger Porter said investigating officers found Remme was home alone, with his dog, Balew, and were told about the accidental discharge.

"He has a license to carry, and a license for the gun," Porter told The Messenger, calling the incident a "freak thing".

"I've never heard of that," Porter said. "I've heard of guns dropping and going off on the floor, and horsing around and guns going off. I can't say I've heard a dog story before. Guns aren't toys, and they can go off. All it takes is a little pressure on the hammer or the trigger to get it to go."

While Remme is recovering, his sweet pup is still upset about what happened.

"The dog's a big wuss. The poor dog laid down beside me and cried, because he thought he was in trouble for doing something wrong. He's a pit lab mix. He's afraid of the dark, he's afraid of water," Remme told The Messenger.

(Photo Credit: Joe Sutter/The Messenger)

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