Dog had lump on his face, leading to ‘quite a surprise.’ Now, the SC pup needs a home

Simone Jasper
·2 min read
5

Veterinarians performing surgery on a dog made an unexpected find — a bullet lodged under his skin, a South Carolina animal shelter said.

The Charleston Animal Society said the surprise came after Hachi the dog was rescued. The pup had a small injury on his face, leading vets to take a closer look and discover the bullet inside his cheek.

“Luckily it had avoided doing damage to his jaw and was safely surgically removed,” the Charleston Animal Society wrote Jan. 4 in a Facebook post. “He is now waiting for a new beginning in the new year and a family to take him home.”

Hachi is up for adoption after he was found on Christmas Day. A good Samaritan brought him to the Charleston Animal Society, where workers believed his injury was from a bite. His face was healing before “an abscess began to form.”

The shelter said the pup “did not suffer the kind of damage we would have expected from a bullet.”
The shelter said the pup “did not suffer the kind of damage we would have expected from a bullet.”

“Veterinarians scheduled him for surgery to open the abscess and when they did they found quite a surprise,” the shelter wrote.

The animal organization told WCIV it doesn’t know whether Hachi was shot by accident. It also said it’s rare to find a bullet inside a dog, still intact.

“It hadn’t hit anything. Hit any bone, hadn’t shattered anything,” Aldwin Roman, vice president of operations and strategy for the shelter, told WCIV. “It was literally just under his skin.”

The Charleston Animal Society said the dog recovered from his surgery and was in need of a new home as of Jan. 4. The shelter in an email to McClatchy News described the pup as an Akita mix and said it could be helpful if his next owner has “some knowledge of working dogs.”

“Hachi is shy at first when coming into a new environment but in the first few minutes, he warms up,” the shelter wrote. “He is OK with other dogs and ignores them if they are rowdy.”

More information about the shelter’s adoption process can be found at charlestonanimalsociety.org.

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