I think some of the facts that would help us to figure out what really happened here are things we don't know, and probably never will know. Such as,
how old was the officer? How much experience did he have? What is his attitude about dogs in general and pit bulls in particular?
See, here's what I think. I think the big bad police officer
panicked when he saw a pit-looking dog coming in his direction and just reacted.
If that's the case, then the real villain of this story is the mass hysteria and negative PR surrounding pits and pit mixes. And possibly the
officer's lack of training.. more on that later.
Hey, anybody but me remember this guy?
www.webanswers.com...
Yeah.. he was a pit bull!
It seems that many people have forgotten how America has loved this breed over time, and have forgotten that many choose this breed of dog today
for a reliable and loving family dog. This was the breed that was affectionately known as “America's Nanny Dog.”
Has the breed changed that much in a few years? Nope. The
perception of the breed has changed that much.
Last year I acquired a puppy which was meant to be an outside dog to protect our chickens and ducks from the coyotes, bobcats, possums, cougars (yes,
we have them in NE Oklahoma and some of my neighbors have pictures to prove it), coydogs, etc. that roam the countryside. Before we lost him he
weighed approx. 130 pounds and could have been ridden by a small child. We lost him because we couldn't break him of roaming the area up to a 5-mile
radius and if he was penned he wasn't doing his job. During the 18 months or so he was here, he was never once injured by anyone whose yard he showed
up in in spite of his size and strength. He was a Great Pyrenees mix.
One of my other dogs is a pit bull/mastiff mix, and he looks pit. He dug out under the fence once and meandered down to the neighbors' (the same
neighbors who often petted and played with Khan the Pyr mix). The neighbor's son shot him with a shotgun because Ringo approached his mother. Ringo
probably wanted to be petted - he's a big baby who still tries to be a lapdog when I let him and he's never once in his life offered to harm any
human. But he LOOKS pit.. so they shot him! (He did survive; his injuries were to his legs).
So anyway, I've wandered a bit off topic here also, my apologies, but as I said I think the real villain here is the negative perception of pit
bulls; I'm wondering if a young, inexperienced officer panicked, reacted before thinking, and then bullshat and bullied his way through the aftermath
partly due to being ashamed and embarrassed.
In no way do I condone the behavior of the officer. In the video we see that the family lives more or less out in the country and does not appear to
have a fenced (front) yard. Loads of us country folk have outside dogs that aren't confined because their JOB is to chase off predators, and out in
the country that's acceptable. A county sheriff once told me that he could do nothing about free-roaming dogs out in the country, but that I myself
could legally shoot them if they were on my property and causing problems.
In that setting, perhaps we can reconsider. A police officer or sheriff's deputy in a rural area should expect to encounter "loose" dogs and should
know how to deal with them in other ways besides shooting them. Most of us rednecks got them "farm" dogs and most of 'em are
supposed to
bark at strangers and at least
look like a potential threat.
Anyways, I think there oughta be a lawsuit that the family wins for the wrongful death of their pet, and that stupid deputy needs some training about
how to deal with country people and country dogs. And the rest of y'all need to get over thinking pit bulls are monsters. They're just DOGS, and
they're dogs that we loved and trusted with our kids not that many years ago.