By Norman Robinson

Metarie, LA (WDSU/CNN) - A dog is a man's best friend, and now people in the New Orleans area are returning the favor.

They have donated enough money to cover the cost of surgery for a dog that was shot trying to save his owner from an armed man.

Five year old Zeus, a Doberman pinscher, took a bullet to the face protecting his owner from an armed trespasser.

"I let him out of the house and he ran around the side here and I started to come behind him, but before I could get to the edge of the house to see what was going on, I heard a gunshot and I heard him start to yelp and I turned around and ran inside. I didn't have anything to protect myself or whatever. I didn't know what was going on," said the dog's owner, Henry McCaskill.

McCaskill says he was in his Metarie home around 11:30 pm Monday when he heard someone in his backyard.

"Police came out they did the investigation and found a bullet casing in the back, I didn't talk to them my dad talked to them and I think he said it was a 40 caliber," said McCaskill.

That forty caliber wound to Zeus' face requires that the dog undergo an expensive operation.

The dog has been stabilized, but McCaskill said that he is devastated by what has happened to his best friend.

"I'm heartbroken. I was up crying all night. It just hurts to talk about it because he's a great animal and he didn't deserve that," said McCaskill.

CNN