Learned when I was about 12 or 13 not to shoot game too close with a shotgun. Rabbit ears with a strip of skin and a tail just don't make a good meal and my dad was quick to correct me for it. Just a big waste of good food. Some shot is imbedded in the wads frequently. Such heavy wads can do considerable damage. Wads with or without imbedded shot generally don't fly to point of aim so a dove struck with just a wad does not mean there was balled shot. Read about a couple guys who mistakenly loaded shotgun slug loads and hit birds that way. As I recall they were carrying the slug loads because they were in grizzly country.
