What kind of moron shoots a harmless Weimaraner?

I was having a Skype video conversation with Indianapolis friend Rich Nathan this afternoon at Books-a-Million when Maria called to say our friends Charlie and Deb were having a dog emergency and she and Austin were headed for their house.

I packed up my netbook and drove there, where Deb was agonizing over what had happened to Heidi, one of their two Weimaraners.

Austin had been dog-sitting for Charlie and Deb while they were out of town for a few days and shortly after they returned home and relieved Austin of his duties, Heidi and Mattie bolted through an open door and fled into the neighborhood.

After a long search, a city animal control officer caught up with Deb and Charlie several blocks from their home. Heidi, it seems, appeared to have been shot with a shotgun and had been blinded in one eye. She also had a pellet under the skin in her abdomen and another in one foot. Mattie, thankfully, was not injured.

Charlie rushed Heidi to the animal hospital where she was sedated overnight pending surgery tomorrow morning to remove the pellets. It’s pretty much certain she’ll lose the eye.

Heidi is a high-spirited goofy dog who loves everyone and couldn’t possibly be a threat to anybody. The animal control officer said he knows where she was shot and has talked with an elderly woman who claims to have shot Heidi with a rusty BB gun. We think she’s covering for someone else at the house, since it’s patently absurd to think a dog would stay put long enough for someone to shoot her three times with a BB gun. Examination of the pellets tomorrow will show whether it was a shotgun or BB gun.

If it was, indeed, a shotgun, whoever did it could face charges of discharging a firearm inside the city limits and possibly felony prosecution under the state’s new animal cruelty law. Either way, they’re in big trouble and either way Charlie and Deb are entitled to restitution.

(The photo above isn’t Heidi or Mattie, but it looks a lot like them.)

I can only guess at what Deb and Charlie are going through. I would be beside myself with grief and rage if someone did such a brutally stupid and cruel thing to either of our dogs.

More as it develops.