West Kelowna – An Okanagan couple is very angry after their dog was shot in the face by a BB gun.

“It’s hard to see your little animal have their eye taken out,” says Kim Thomas.

Last Thursday, Kim Thomas and her husband Wade were sitting on the patio at their West Kelowna cabin when their 10-year-old beagle Nyla disappeared for a few minutes. When she came back, blood was gushing out of her right eye.

“We thought she got poked with [a] stick or a cat got her,” says Wade Thomas.

The couple rushed the dog to the animal hospital, but the severity of her injury sent them to an eye specialist in Vancouver. They had no idea Nyla was shot with a BB gun until the vet began to operate and pulled out the small pellet from her eye.

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“It is obviously more upsetting to know it was human-caused,” says Wade Thomas. “I want people to be aware there are those kinds of humans that would do this. I don’t want this to happen again. I want to know who did it, I want to have peace of mind and I want them to know what they have done as well.”

The SPCA says it does hear about these kinds of injuries to pets from time to time. If the person responsible is found and it’s proven the act was deliberate, they could face charges under the animal cruelty act.

“It is just so dangerous to fire any of those weapons,” says Suzanne Pugh, manager of the Kelowna SPCA. “The repercussions if they survive and just the medical costs the owner will incur and the trauma to the animal too.”

With vet costs and travel expenses to Vancouver, the Thomases have spent more than $3,000 to get Nyla the treatment she needed. On top of the $1,000 reward the family is offering, strangers touched by the story are also throwing in cash to help find whoever is responsible.

“I can’t believe people would do it to an innocent puppy,” says Wade Thomas. “It was doing nothing to them, I can guarantee that, so for someone to think that is the right thing to do if they don’t want them near their property to shoot them with BB gun.”

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Police and the SPCA would like to hear from anyone with more information. The shooting took place last Thursday around 11:30 p.m. It happened along Lindley Drive which is just off Westside Road, not far from highway 97.