I was reading comments following the recent incident of one of our police officers shooting a dog. Many people conclude that the dog was not to blame. On that, I agree. Dogs become confused, especially when some stranger is yelling at them. Time and time again we see evidence that many pet owners are not smart enough to own a dog. Any reasonable person would realize that the best way to control your dog is with a leash. If you can’t figure out the purpose of the leash, you should not take your dog into a crowd.
Every effort that the person attempting to control the dog made it worse. Their excitement just further excited the dog. During the two separate altercations that the police had with the dog, I did not hear a single person say “no” to the dog. That is the first step in training dogs to be around people; to stop aberrant behavior. This incident failed at all levels.
When the officer approached the dog the first time, the leash was on the dog, but no one was holding the leash. Someone was stepping on the leash. The officer should have seen the risk that he was entering into and demanded that someone take the leash into their hands. It might have helped that he didn’t start with “his cop voice.”
In the second incident with the dog, the dog was off-leash. The person near the dog could be clearly seen with the leash in her hand. This makes no sense; the person had to be pretty stupid to take the dog off leash following the dog biting an officer just moments before.
Still using his “cop voice,” but a little more excited, the officer was yelling at the woman to hold the dog. In addition to the woman being stupid, she was also very slow. The dog began approaching the officer and the woman’s efforts to stop the dog only seemed to excite the dog more.
As slow as the woman was, the police officer was very quick in pumping four rounds into the dog. Although the dog didn’t immediately die, it was in pretty bad shape. I don’t know at what point that dog realized that he was acting badly; it is further evidence that people should be tested first before they are allowed to own a pet or have children.