Keeping Your Dog Safe from Law Enforcement - Page 18

GSD admin. has summed up the problem in a nutshell, and I am sickened, especially after reading the article about the deaf 19 year old cat that was shot and thrown in the trash.

I fully understand the need of LEOs to protect themselves, and I am aware that the drug dealers love to keep aggressive dogs to protect their drug dens. But shooting pets, whether they show aggression or not, seems to have become SOP, as GSD says above.

Not long ago, I read about an incident here in Ontario where LEOs encountered an aggressive dog (I think it was a pit bull. They are banned here, but existing pits were 'grandfathered in', to avoid mass euthanasia. Owners must muzzle them when they are out in public.)

Anyway, this was a truly aggressive dog. The LEO did EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to avoid having to shoot it. I think eventually he subdued it with his Taser.

So, as GSD has noted with the Postal Service, there IS an alternative, and it's high time it became the norm, rather than the officers reaching for their hardware, and blasting away!

It even happened in New Orleans, after Katrina, athough the officers responsible were charged. Officer evacuating residents took away people's dogs, and told them they would be kept safe. The dogs were confined to a classroom in a school. Once the residents had left, several police officers opened fire and killed them all:  http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3265151&page=2 

This cannot go on, I am all for keeping officers safe but over and over we are seeing restrained dogs being shot by people who should not even have guns. If the cops ever bust in my house they will shoot all my beautiful GSDs whether they attack or not and by the videos posted on the web they will actually hunt them down and kill them whether they are cowering in a corner or not. This stuff is sickening.

Please member officers understand we know you guys would never shoot a dog like this and we are not slamming you or your profession we are slamming people who don't have the skill to deal with pets and probably shouldn't be officers in the first place-millions of homes have at least one pet so this is a huge problem. And not all of these pets are protecting drug dealers.

I honestly believe all officers should undergo a through yearly psych exam and hair sample drug testing to determine if they are mentally stable enough to carry guns. After all the daily grind does take it's toll.

I didn't write the above article it was posted at Huffington and is a great read-I only copied parts of it to make it shorter for the forum.

Contrast that to the U.S. Postal Service, another government organization whose employees regularly come into contact with pets. A Postal Service spokesman said in a 2009 interview that serious dog attacks on mail carriers are extremely rare. That's likely because postal workers are annually shown a two-hour video and given further training on "how to distract dogs with toys, subdue them with voice commands, or, at worst, incapacitate them with Mace."

Without a lethal weapon to automatically go to, the postal workers rely on training and outsmarting animals they come into contact with, that seem or actually are aggressive. There is no reason to go automatically to lethal force.

 

I believe if we armed postal workers we would see many animals being killed by them as well. I would guess that the percentage would be lower even though they encounter more pets and more aggressive behavior daily. Having successfully dealt with non lethal technics for so long my bet is the would use those first and only a firearm as last choice or in error.  Bad people in all organizations aside. In San Diego last year I believe the first postal worker was killed by a dog. 

 

The proof is right here in this pudding. There is no reason to go automatically to lethal force. Its tragic that someone would lose their life because of careless or reckless owners, and Im not demeaning that.  There has to be a middle ground, and if they are able to others should be as well.

I had been watching this post since the beginning. Just to share a short story here with a problem we just encountered:   Just last week, we were taking our normal walk with Charlie, our dear & beloved service dog ( yes a Belgian Malinois ). During that time we ran across a rouge black lab with no owner in site. This said dog ran a straight line from where he was standing to us. We never thought for one minute that we were going to be attacked until the last 20 feet the dog was to us. No snarling nor growling, just a flat out dead run to attack us. I stood there in fear, yet Charlie knew differently. How do you react in 20 feet? Now, Jack could of shot & killed the dog and it would have been justified with the bite I had and the vet bill and surgery that Charlie required afterwards. Proud of my mild PTSD Iraq war Veteran hubby that did not shoot this dog, just using the stun flash light we had dropped the dog and stopped the fight. We took our baby girl straight to the vet first and took care of her needs first. Not every Police officer is bad, every situation is different for them. Not all of them are educated on dogs, not even all PD owns dogs so how would they even begin to know the body language of a dog with what behavior the dog with present at the time of incident? Yes, PD will protect there own, now that we are all educated on this subject instead of dwelling on it & drumming up more drama we would all  benefit by make a plan on how to protect our beloved "working" dogs from this problem?
So if we are all smarter then this why all the drama of dwelling on this and not educating other's on what to do in this situation instead of looking up horrible stories and feeding off of it instead of comparing how our plans will work to protect our beloved working dogs?  Just

Gigante,

I agree, a good training program might help in this situation but when cops discuss who is going to shoot the dogs before they even arrive and see the dogs are not aggressive, there is a problem.

Oregontnt2007,

While the last half of your post is on topic, we are not discussing loose dogs attacking others, that should be in a topic of it's own.
And the drama comes from both sides. Including the story you just posted.

Lets work on keeping this thread on the topic of "Keeping your dog safe from law enforcement." And the tragedy that happens when you don't.

The sickening thing about these stories is they all happened so fast, without warning. A SWAT raid targets the wrong address. A police officer is doing a yard-to-yard search, and you happen to have your dog out in the backyard he enters, without you having a chance to secure your dog.

If a SWAT team busts your door down, they are NOT going to give you a chance to secure your dogs, and if you try to, you may well get shot, as they are expecting armed resistance.

Sure if I get warning there's a dangerous criminal in the area, I am going to secure my dogs. But what if I shut them in the bedroom, and the officers come to my home, and want to do a search of the house?

It's frightening to think our dogs aren't even safe in our own homes!

Unreal, if you think it can't happen to you think again. I won't be vacationing in this state and I suggest other members do the same. Tell me how you protect your dog on something like this, the cops let the dog out of the car and then shoot it when it wants to play with the flashlight.




This is video from a police car's dash-cam that shows Tennessee State Troopers shooting a North Carolina family's dog (around 3:03 in the video). It happened while the family was returning from their vacation in Nashville. Police say they stopped them because they "matched the description" in a robbery that had just occurred (they were actually innocent). The officer who shot the dog (Eric Hall) hasn't been punished for the episode; he has only been reassigned to "administrative duties". The Tennessee Department of Safety issued an apology here: http://tennessee.gov/safety/newsreleases/2003/statement.html

Here is the account of what happened from the point-of-view of Eric Hall: "I yelled at the dog to 'get back' but it attempted to circle me to attack, so I felt that I had no other option but to protect myself."

Here is the account of what happened from the point-of-view of the family: "My dog then came out of the car and ran towards the officer with the shotgun and flashlight. We started yelling to please let us get him, don't shoot, he was only barking at the flashlight and jumping at the light. My son plays with him using a flashlight. This is when my dog was murdered."

Further information:
http://tinyurl.com/2f97jv
http://tinyurl.com/2esao5
http://tinyurl.com/2xyjgd
http://tinyurl.com/yrkssb

Is there a psyche test that can accurately assess a person's respect for life?  Not just witten, but a roleplay scenario that requires promt uncalculated responses from it's testing participant?  Because if there's one thing we've learned from this thread so far, is that it isn't always a training issue, sometimes it's a character issue.

Anything is better than nothing. We all know of someone who was fine as a 20 something coming out of college and due to STRESS and or GENETICS develop mental illness as they age. It happens all across America and can happen to police and any occupation. What about the officers who take pain medications and other prescription drugs? We all know how heavy legal narcotics can affect us and our decisions. I know when I was in the hospital on morphine I was losing it and there are plenty of these legal drugs abused by all peoples. Do officers have to undergo a yearly hair analysis or is that only for the factory workers who assemble products? We allow officers to carry weapons and make life and death decisions but don't require yearly hair analysis? How do we protect our dogs from officers who abuse alcohol and have diminished thought processes because of years of heavy/moderate drinking?

I really can't think of a fail proof method to protect our dogs because as Sunsilver says these things happen in the blink of an eye and not just to drug dealers and criminals.

I agree, a good training program might help in this situation but when cops discuss who is going to shoot the dogs before they even arrive and see the dogs are not aggressive, there is a problem.

Thats has always been my point from the gate. That video is just one of so many examples that this policy is absolutely in many departments nationwide. Training only, wont fix that. Training can provide a stop gap for most officers to choose different methods but, there has to be a change in the current thought that dogs and lawn chairs are one in the same. 

It's frightening to think our dogs aren't even safe in our own homes!

That right there... is right on topic. The chances that our individual dogs will be killed in our own home are small at the moment, but rising. 

 

The chances that someones dog is going to be killed in their own home today are significant.  Some LEO have stated that their not seeing this problem, Thats not the case in many areas.  I cant see my dogs falling victim. Even if we dont feel its an issue for us, animals should not be treated in many of the ways presented.  We should not be afraid for our dogs,especially in our homes. 

 

Im not forgetting by focusing on this subject, that there is also a significant chance an officer will fall today as well. But, thats not this thread.