A three-year-old German Shepherd took three bullets to the neck and leg trying to protect his teenage owner from two men who had broken into the family’s Seattle home.
Police said Javier Mercado was home alone with his dog Rex when two burglars smashed a sliding glass door and broke into the family’s South 234th Street home around 12:20pm on Wednesday.
Mercado hid in a closet in his parents’ upstairs bedroom and called 911. Rex, determined to protect his 16-year-old owner, ran downstairs to confront the robbers.
According to KIRO 7, Rex was beaten by the burglars until he was bloody.
Rex, a three-year-old German Shepherd, was shot multiple times trying to protect his teenage owner from burglars who had broken into the family’s Seattle home
The dog was hit in the neck, leg and knee and taken to an animal hospital in Renton, Washington
The family said Rex was trying to protect 16-year-old Javier Mercado when the two suspects shot the dog and then fled
The dog then ran back upstairs as the intruders ransacked the rooms downstairs.
The burglars eventually made their way upstairs going from room to room. When they entered the bedroom where Mercado was hiding, Rex lunged at them and was shot three or four times. The bullets hit the dog in the neck, leg and knee.
The family said in a GoFundMe page that the two men fled the house when they heard police sirens.
‘My nephew was protected by his eternal friend,’ Mercado’s aunt Susy Cadena wrote on the GoFundMe page, set up to seek donations for Rex’s medical procedures and recovery. The family has already raised more than their $10,000 goal.
According to Q13 Fox, Rex is currently at BluePearl Veterinary Partners in Renton waiting to see if he will need surgery. The teen’s mother, Julia, told the outlet that doctors are worried about the bullet that hit Rex in the neck.
‘The bullet actually came all through the other side (of Rex’s neck). There’s fragments in there,’ she said.
Police have yet to locate the burglary suspects and don’t know why the house was targeted.
Police said two men broke into the South 234th Street home on Wednesday afternoon by shattering a sliding glass door at the back of the home
Rex is currently at BluePearl Veterinary Partners in Renton waiting to see if he will need surgery, the family said