Woman seeks answers after she says someone shot her dog

A woman in Ormond Beach, Florida wants answers after she says someone shot her dog in the leg. 

Liz Mahlstedt says Katie, a 3-year-old Walker Hound, escaped from her yard Monday afternoon after getting through a hole under her fence. She lives in a gated community. 

“Immediately rushed out, I knew it had been only a couple minutes and thought, we’ll find her immediately,” Mahlstedt explained. 

She called Katie’s owner, Nelsy Caliendo, who was nearby and the two quickly got a group together to start searching.   The women say after no sign of the dog for two hours, they circled back to the house and found Katie in the brush with a wound.  

“We ran back there and she was very scared, and kind of like folding into herself,” Caliendo said. 

Katie was rushed to the vet. That’s when the two say they got the news that she had been shot with a .22 caliber bullet. 

“She brought us in to the see the X-ray and she was like, ‘Look, that’s a bullet. There’s a bullet lodged in her leg,’” Caliendo recalled from the visit. 

She still doesn’t know where Katie went in those two hours or who would hurt her. A report has been filed with Ormond Beach Police. 

“We don’t want this to happen to anybody else. I want to be able to feel safe when I let the dogs out,” Mahlstedt said. “It does make you wonder what else this person is capable of.” 

Caliendo says Katie is doing much better but the bullet is still in her leg and she may need surgery to have it removed.