The Bobcat Nation

Just a little something to rile up dog people.

http://www.reason.com/0604/co.rb.rant.shtml

I've been in a couple situations where the "family dog" was about 2 seconds away from getting shot and or pepper sprayed. And know of a few incidents where they did get pepper sprayed, and I'm nothing close to SWAT.

That article gets me madder everytime I read it.

It would be nice if the article would mention whether the family dog was a trained attack dog as opposed to a harmless fluffy Fido.

The few cases where it is sincerely tragic is when police enter a home by force by surprise and somebody (dog, human, etc.) gets shot as they instinctively move to defend the family from the unknown intruders ... and it later turns out that the police had the wrong house or a bad lead. This sort of thing does happen, but I'm sure it's very rare.

On the flipside, I'm sure more than a few cops have been attacked by dogs or shot by criminals in defense of obviously illegal activities.

The article seems to swing dramatically on an emotional level depending on how the reader visualizes the dog ... people get emotional when it comes to dogs.

I like how they use the word "raid" rather than "a search." They are the same thing and both have to be authorized by a judge.

hell mine is a sweet fido, but come on if you see 223 pound dog running towards you, how many cops would wait to find out if Dozer is a love muffin, or a ball biter? i'd have to shoot the cop - I LOVE my dozer

Obviously this story is designed to enflame the reader; I'm sure the cops' actions were justified in a lot of these cases (either because the cops truly were in danger or because they had legitimate reason to believe they were). Some of them are a lot worse than others, though. Joking about killing the dog in front of the family is pretty inappropriate, regardless of whether the cop thought he was defending himself at the time.

The one that really pissed me off, though, was the one who chased the puppy back into a burning building with a fire extinguisher -- that's just plain sociopathic. Anyone who does that deserves some prison time for cruelty to animals, imo (and probably needs some therapy, too).

briannell wrote:hell mine is a sweet fido, but come on if you see 223 pound dog running towards you, how many cops would wait to find out if Dozer is a love muffin, or a ball biter? i'd have to shoot the cop - I LOVE my dozer

NO Question. If a cop shot my dog I would kill the cop with his own gun and then drive down to the precinct and take out the rest of those power hungry bastards!