9mm Beretta. (QMI Agency, file)

MIAMI - Police added a dose of skepticism on Wednesday to a report about a man who says he was shot by his dog while driving down a Florida highway.

Commander Steve Carr, a police spokesman in the central town of Sebring, where the shooting occurred on Saturday, said there were “some indications” the shooting victim may have made up his “dog shoots man” story.

Gregory Lane Lanier, 35, told police he thought the 9mm Beretta semi-automatic handgun on the floor of his pickup truck was unloaded when the black and tan English bulldog kicked it and caused it to fire.

Lanier was hit in his left leg and the bullet wound, patched up at a local hospital, was not serious.

“It’s what he claims,” Carr said of Lanier’s account. “We didn’t spend a lot of time investigating it. There doesn’t appear to be any criminal act involved. You don’t have to be licensed in Florida to carry a handgun.”

Lanier could not be reached for comment on Wednesday. Calls to a phone number listed for him in a Sebring Police Department report on the highway shooting went unanswered.