Responses

  1. This is a sad story. Unfortunately this is what happens when you let your dog loose on a cop. What if that was a child selling cookies? Did the dog open the door and let herself out in attack mode? I agree with Mike, the cop did nothing wrong. In addition as a hunter, I can tell you animal adrenaline is more powerful than humans. It may very well may have been necessary for three shots to stop this dog. I’m sorry for the family however they need to take responsibility for their pet’s actions.

  2. I as a K-9 Officer understand the officers reaction, and I even believe that under the circumstances I saw presented in the video, I would have done something similar. Training now is to use our Tazer with the dogs, and by ready to use our firearm if necessary. Now in my case, and given my knowledge of canine behaviour, culture, and psychology, my decision may have been different in the moment and probably would’ve been; however this officer had none of those things to my understanding, and therefore was unfortunately placed in a position where he had to make a split second decision with limited knowledge, or understanding of the situation. The Mistake? Well I would be one to part on the officers side, only because I can understand his reaction, and probably pin the mistake first made towards the owners, “PROPER TRAINING”, I can’t stress enough the value of a well trained dog in an officers eyes. Unless you are showing off your Schutzhund work, then we feel the dog is much less of a threat, and can even bring some level of comfort to owners that we would rather not remove given some circumstances.

    The next mistakes I would say would be on part of Officer, and Owner.

    If you watch the video, 10 seconds before the dog is lunging out the door, the officer senses danger (be it his spidy senses as a road work vet, or he hears the dog) and thenas seen visually prepares himself for the encounter. This behaviour, is something I myself would would do as well. The fault is not in the preparation… But from what I can tell he does not announce to the individuals not to let the dog out if they have one. Now thats just what I see… I could be very wrong.

    Thirdly and finally, I would say the owners where at fault for (from beginning) lack of training the dog in general, and lack of training the dog “You exit the door first”. The big thing here is that all of this could’ve been preventable with proper training, and knowledge of the dogs.

    The officer did nothing wrong… we only have the tools we are given from our service… mentally and physically.

    1. I agree with both of you. When I did this interview they were expecting me to take the side of the owner since that is obviously why it became a news story to begin with. They haven’t called me back since for interviews lol. I love all dogs and have owned and loved all of the types that will and can hurt someone if they slip out the door. I hate it when people don’t take responsibility for the own actions. Even calling this dog a “bull terrier cross” is a disservice to pit bulls and pit bull crosses. If you will not even admit to what you own and what they are capable of, how are you going to take responsibility for anything after. It just drives me nuts. The dog was killed because of the owners. They might as well have walked the dog off-leash next to a highway.