A five-year-old pet dog was shot and critically injured after jumping over a low wall into a farmer’s field on the outskirts of Siġġiewi on Sunday, leaving its owner in a state of shock.

Raymond Pace was taking his pharaoh hound Tinu for a walk, as is customary for him to do on a weekend morning. Running off ahead, Tinu jumped over the wall.

“I just heard a loud bang. Next thing I know I see my dog lying in a pool of blood, hanging onto his life. I didn’t want to believe what had happened,” a distraught Mr Pace told The Times.

Mr Pace said he knew who shot the dog – a farmer who was in a small farm building on the land at the time.

He said that when he heard the bang he at first thought the man was shooting at pigeons and never imagined the weapon was aimed at his pet. He jumped down to rescue his dog, draped it over his shoulders and called a friend who drove him to the newly-opened St Francis animal centre in Ta’ Qali. Tinu was still in critical condition yesterday.

An X-ray showed he had about 50 shotgun pellets lodged in his face and neck, and his right eye was so badly damaged that he is unlikely to ever see out of it again.

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