Duck hunting
A man who went duck hunting in Utah was shot in the bum by his pet dog. Reuters

A man was wounded in the buttocks after his pet dog stood on his gun and ignited the firearm.

The 46-year-old man was duck hunting with a friend on Sunday when the drama unfolded on Great Salt Lake in Utah, United States.

The man's 12-gauge shot gun lay on the bow of the canoe when his over-excited dog started jumping around the boat with excitement and stepped on the gun, unintentionally triggering it to fire 27 pellets of birdshot at his rear end.

Police said the man, who was in marshy waters setting up decoys, was 10ft away from the gun when the pellets hit him in the posterior.

"The guy in the water put his 12-gauge shotgun across the bow of their boat. The dog got excited, was jumping around inside the boat and then it jumped on the gun. It went off, shooting [the man] in the buttocks," Box Elder County Sheriff's deputy chief Kevin Porter said of the unusual incident.

"The dog did something to make the gun discharge. I don't know if the safety device was on. It's not impossible the dog could have taken it off safety," Deputy sheriff Kevin Potter told Yahoo news.

The man was not seriously injured but was still taken to a nearby hospital to have his injuries tended to.