MOSCOW — A hunter in Russia has been essentially shot and killed by his own dog, when the animal brushed against a weapon that was balanced on his knee and pointed toward his stomach.

Investigators in the southern region of Saratov said in a statement that a 64-year-old man had died of abdominal wounds sustained while unloading his Estonian Hounds from his car on Sunday.

“The gun was on his knee, butt down, with the barrel pointed at his stomach,” one investigator, Aleksandr Galanin, told a local news outlet, citing a relative who described the events that had led to the hunter’s death. Once released from the car, Mr. Galanin said, an excited dog jumped on the hunter, hitting the trigger of his double-barreled TOZ-34 shotgun.

“A rather experienced hunter has died,” Mr. Galanin said. “He was sober, he had a firearms license. Everything was in order. It was an accident.”