As hunters, it’s critical that before you shoot, you correctly identify your target. A Virginia deer hunter didn’t do that and, due to his mistake, another family’s horse was shot. Last week, Jeffrey Mayo was officially charged “with reckless handling of a firearm and discharging a firearm within 100 yards of an occupied dwelling,” MSN.com reports.

“It was determined through the investigation that the suspect was hunting and had fired three shots at a deer while it was running,” according to a news release.

Image provided by the horse's owner, Alexander Gaudino.

The 24-year-old quarter horse named Penny was discovered on Nov. 27, bleeding from her side. Her caretaker, Alexander Gaudino, thought that the horse had cut itself on barbed wire, but, upon further investigation, determined that the horse had suffered far worse: wounds to its chest and lung from Mayo’s bullet. According to ABC 8 News, the bullet had entered through her side and passed out the other way through her lung. While Penny was initially “fighting to live,” the horse has since recovered under the care of the family’s veterinarian.

The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries assisted with the investigation.