A lot of people think BB guns merely sting when the pellet hits and that's true most of the time.
It's those few times when it's not true that makes it cruel.
For the last 6 weeks we've had a large stray black dog coming around. We have a rat terrier-benjii mutt mix that we take outside on a leash since we don't have a backyard fence. Both of us have had surgery this summer so we're not in the best of shape in case the dogs were to get into it.
At first I thought the stray was a nursing female because I really thought I had seen her teats while I was looking out the window one day. I didn't want to call animal control because if she had puppies, I thought they'd die if she wasn't there to feed them.
For about a week we didn't see the stray so we decided maybe someone else had called animal control. The dog showed back up Monday and couldn't use the back right leg. I knew then I had to call Animal Control.
While waiting on Animal Control I decided I'd feed the dog some dry dog food. Turns out she was a he. He wolfed it all down. I then fed it 3 cans of Pedigree dog food, one can at a time and he wolfed all of those down.
I knew I could safely approach the dog because of the injury and also where he had holed up. That's the reason I initially decided to go ahead and feed him some dry food. Once I laid the plastic dish down I noticed the dog had gray hair on his snout and was also blind in one eye because of a cataract. We're a small town and there's no money in the budget to fix the dog's injuries so I knew he wouldn't be offered for adoption.
When the Animal Control officers came to pick him up, after they got the collar (used a pole collar) on him they looked at his leg. Someone had shot him with a BB gun and the wound had festered.
I'm sure if this dog had been someone's pet and had been shot with a BB gun the Vet could have removed the pellet easily and sent him home with some antibiotics.
I felt badly (still do) about calling Animal Control but I am not in a position to adopt a big dog at this time. No backyard fence, recovering from surgery, already have 2 cats and my dog, unknown character of the stray and several other reasons.
Where I'm really pissed off is at the people that abandoned that poor dog.
I agree the bb gun is not a good thing unless the dog is charging like pit bulls have reps for attacking.
When the local dogs usually Labs too show up in my yard I load them up and take them home if their parents do not show up in a reasonable amount of time.
I would never call the dog pound for visiting pets, I am a doggie mama and feel it is better to take the visiting canines back to their owners or keep an eye out for someone looking for thier pet if I don''t know the dog.
The Labs that come over only do it once in a great while.
One day I had two on I was babysitting for a neighbor and another whose owner had to get going that morning on a charter boat he owns so his big Choc Lab slept in my backyard all day under the deck. GO figure.
I find it special that dogs show up at our place when they get out. We have a busy bay road that people speed on down below and I would rather they hang out at my place then be on that bay road and cause an accident or get hit.
But the Lib neihgbor, we live acres apart around here coming into my home and coming to my bed and waking me up cause she was pissed was not appropriate.
Oh well maybe that is why I would rather have dogs visiting.
Thank you for showing that dog more kindness than he'd probably ever experienced in his life. Don't worry that you couldn't do more -- I'm sure what you did seemed like a miracle to the dog.