I am at a total loss with this one. There have been so many incidents of police shooting family dogs lately because they were barking. There were several reports around Halloween and at least one every few weeks since then. The police respond to a call and the dog is in the yard barking. Yes the dogs come running at the police officers but the police are entering their homes. What the police are not doing is looking at the body language of the dogs. The dogs in all the reports are friendly to children, adults, and other dogs they are after all family pets. Yes they might come running and barking but their tails are wagging, their teeth are not barred and have been confined inside their yards. The police in all the reports yell at the dogs to stop running and to be quiet.
Yeah right a new friend has come to play or someone is entering the yard and it is my job to alert the family and check out the intruder. They are not using other methods to calm or contain the dogs they are just drawing their guns and shooting family pets because they came running and barking towards the police officers.
The latest occurrence of a police officer shooting a family Pet in is Clayton County, Georgia. This is no longer an isolated thing with police shooting family pets so frequently. I think that there needs to be some sort of special training for police officers so they can learn how to deal with family pets protecting their property without lethal force. To learn how to observe animal behavior before drawing their guns and shooting.
http://abcnews.go.com/assets/player/walt2.6/flash/SFP_Walt_2_65.swf
That's so horrible for that poor family! I'm with you, there does need to be some sort of training for the officers. But of course, they're probably not smart enough to get it if they can't figure out on their own that the dog is friendly. It's just a sad, awful situation.
Great post! Thanks so much for calling this outrageous behavior to our attention!
Your buddy,
Bocci
Do they think dogs understand “stop” or whatever? They know commands but are not able to understand some stranger yelling at them. It's so wrong.
That is a disgrace!
Better training is definitely needed to help cops better handle such encounters.
Not all Dogs…or Cats, you encounter in a yard, defending their homes, are Rabid Menaces!
BTW, I'm I've added the Hop Badge to the sidebar of my blog, with links to all 3 co-hosts, underneath.
This part of the sidebar lists similar events, one of which, Carnival of the Cats (The Gran Dad of such Critter Blogging events!), I am a regular host & Cheerleader for. ;-D