Police Shooting Of Nonthreatening Dog

Now I love dogs, and I have one myself, but why not search for a credible source for this info rather then the aggrieved parties personal blog? It seems that many dog owners think that because they believe that their dog will not bite, that others automatically know this as well.

Just last night I was charged by an unattended dog that was roaming my neighborhood, and if I had not been able to get away from it, I am afraid it would have attacked me. A dog running at you at full charge, barking, may be seem as playing to the owner, but many dog owners have shown over the years that they lack a certain amount of common sense when it comes to understanding how others perceive the actions of their dogs.

Others yet, get some type of perverse joy in having an aggressive dog, and enjoy watching them confront strangers, scare others dogs, and even fight with them. That is why pit-bulls are so popular among certain groups, because they are intimidating. Then the owners will actually exercise them to make them even more intimidating.

Now for some facts from the news:

Cop shoots, kills dog during Adams Morgan festival
UPDATE 7:47 p.m. Sept. 13: The Washington Post has obtained the police report on the incident. It describes the dog as appearing "to be out of control" and says the dog "charged" at the officer before it was fatally shot.

An officer with the D.C. police department shot and killed a dog — possibly a rottweiler or pit bull — outside The Brass Knob antique store at 2311 18th St. NW. The shooting followed an intense, two-minute scuffle between the dog and what witnesses describe as a "smaller" white dog.

In dispute of the what the dog's handler has said, police tonight released a statement saying the dog was out of control and also bit the handler. Here's the entire e-mail from Third District Capt. Aubrey P. Mongal:

Earlier this afternoon, during the Adams Morgan Day events, an MPD officer encountered a dog in the crowded pedestrian area that got out of the control of it’s handler. The dog attacked another dog and also bit it handler. The officer, after making several attempts to subdue the dog by training tactics, had to finally shoot one time to stop the dog.

And what do we have here?
A pit-bull that the owner was allowing to fight with another person's dog.
You buy an intimidating animal, you train it to be intimidating, you encourage that behavior, and you don’t control it in public, expect the exact same thing to happen to you.

Originally posted by ofhumandescent
I've worked with Animal Control and the ASPCA...........The dog was shot as it laid down, wagging his/her tail.

And how do you know this? Where you there when it happened or are you just going off one of a series of photos that was picked because it has the most emotional value to the news agency?

You do, of course, realize that news agencies do that to provoke your emotions as it sells the news, right?

Maybe the reason that the officer has that grimace look on his face is because he is trying to protect his face from a thrashing dog.
Here is the statement from one witness and another officer on the scene:

A former metropolitan police officer witnessed the shooting. “We were no more than 20 feet away when two dogs got into it," said Tony De Passe. "The officers ran over to try to restrain one of the dogs. By now one dog came loose and bit a man. He fell to the ground. The officer then put his hand on the dog’s throat and tried to restrain the dog. The dog spun around and bit the officer on his hand."

Noah Siegel said he knows one of the men bitten by the dog. "I heard some dogs barking and some people screaming," Siegel said. "I love dogs but you can’t have dogs attacking people out in a crowd like this."

So here we have a bystander saying the dog was out of control in a crowd, and you have a statement that the officer was bitten. That is an attack on a police officer, even if from a dog, and even biting a civilian justifies putting an animal down in most states under most circumstances.

Originally posted by ofhumandescent
Yes a dog that size is a handful but with somebody that knows what they are doing it could have been handled differently and not involved a dog being shot point blank, execution style in the head.

That's not the officers job, his job in that case is to protect himself and others.
Police are not carrying the proper equipment to subdue animals.

Originally posted by ofhumandescent
Where was Animal Control, or a back up truck with a cage?

At best, most likely 10 or 15 minutes away, in most cases more like 45+. So should they have just let the dog run around attacking random things during that period?

Originally posted by ofhumandescent
No, no, no, no, that cop was bad to the bone, may he rot in the deepest pit of hell.

great, lets call for a cop to go to hell after actually protecting the public for a change.
Would you feel the same way if your children had been in reach of that dog? It was a fair after all, and there were children all around the area.

Originally posted by ofhumandescent
Towards the end, the dog laid down then the cop shot him.

That's not what happened, the cop has that dog pinned by the scruff in that photo, and THEN he was bitten. Read the above quote, that photo is before the dog bit him.

Originally posted by ofhumandescent
Hope your dog gets loose and meets up with that cop, then see how you feel.

I certainly hope that never happens, but I take responsibility for my pets, and I do everything within my power to keep them out of harms way. If I know that my dog has a problem, then I don't put it in situations where that can occur.

Originally posted by ofhumandescent
Or maybe you are like my dog that came from a puppy mill and had a owner with no heart, no kindness.

I love my dogs very much, and they are treated better then most humans. Hell, its always a joke that mine gets better medical care then most people, but current one requires it.

When I got my dog it was very ill, and the people who gave it to me had no idea how sick it was. It had already bitten people, and they didn't know why. They offered it to me as a last resort, and if I hadn't taken it in, it was heading for animal services. They would have destroyed the dog because of its bad temperament, and it would have never been given a chance, so even though I was leery of it (especially having pit in it), I took it in.

It ended up that the dog had been in chronic pain probably for the majority of the first six months of its life. The first thing I did was take it to a vet, and the problem was immediately caught and taken car of. Unfortunately though, because of this, the dog was very afraid around people for most of the next year, and would bite at unfamiliar people without warning. Even going so far as to go after a friends neck and face once. Again, unprovoked and without warning, one minute lying on the ground between us and the next jumping into their face.

Now she's a very smart dog, and after a years worth of work and thousands of dollars, this is finally subsiding and she's starting to act more like the dogs I am accustomed to owning. Now the biggest problem is MY fear that she will still attack someone, and she picks up on this subconscious signal from me. As I cannot control that 100%, I always make sure that when I have her out somewhere she is isolated as possible, people are warned from approaching her, and I used a full leash/collar with loops at both ends so I can get her from the collar end in an emergency. I also tuck a muzzle in my pocket just in case as well.

Its the owners job to know their dog, to control it, to train it, to know its quirks and limitations, and to keep boundaries around that animal to prevent any issue. Especially when you own a potentially hazardous or extremely powerful animal.

Its certainly not the cops fault for the owners lack of doing the above.