JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A German shepherd service dog is recovering this week after it shot with an arrow this weekend in Oceanway.
Kitty Bryant told News4JAX she let her service dog Khalessi out into the backyard on Saturday to use the bathroom before the unthinkable happened.
“I was inside in my room and I heard her barking right outside my window. And then I heard like, like an arrow. And then I heard a yelp,” Bryant said.
Bryant said her foster daughter ran into the backyard and found Khalessi with an arrow through her stomach.
“I thought she was a goner, but I called 911, and then after I got off the phone with them I called emergency vets, and I could only find one vet,” Bryant said.
Bryant rushed Khalessi to the vet in Jacksonville Beach and she had emergency surgery to remove the arrow from her intestine. Bryant credits the staff at First Coast Veterinary Emergency with saving her dog’s life.
Doctors said if the arrow had gone through the dog’s body, it could have been catastrophic. Now Bryant is thankful that Khalessi is at home and doing OK.
But there are still questions about who would do such a thing — and why.
“She’s like really not a mean dog. And she likes the cats and stuff. So she was just barking. So I don’t know if she was barking at somebody that day that didn’t want her barking or what. It’s just it’s a crossbow. So I don’t think it was a target practice by accident or anything,” Bryant said.
Bryant said she filed a report with the police and is asking anyone who might have seen what happened that afternoon to report it to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office or Animal Control Services.
Sadly, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.
In 2020 a dog was found with an arrow through its head in Nassau County and miraculously survived.
Bryant has been receiving donations to go towards the nearly $5,000 vet bill she got for the emergency surgery. The Community Pet Project is helping raise money and she started a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe.com.
