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Comment by Judgmentality | Hacker News Reader

> a persons' dog is more important than most other humans to most dog owners, yet the law treats dogs as nothing more than property

Something I've always found particularly infuriating is how police dogs are considered officers and often carries a worse punishment than attacking an actual police officer. Not because I am upset that the dogs are being protected, but that the police basically can shoot other people's dogs but nobody can touch their dogs.

Jesus I am just going off on tangents tonight. I need to take a break for a bit.

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Police dogs are not actual officers, as they can not meet the training and oath requirements.

I'm not aware of any laws protecting the dogs specifically other than general animal cruelty laws. But because they are very expensive to train (I know of a bomb dog that cost $30k+) you are facing felony property damage charges if you injure or disable them.

You should take a break.

So I did some googling and like most things, "it's complicated."

It varies by state, but killing a police dog can put you in jail for 10 years (and this has happened) and that is a federal law. There are some states pursuing stricter measures themselves where killing a canine officer is equivalent to killing a human officer.

As to what I said about killing a police dog having a harsher punishment, that was based on a single anecdote and I meant that the judges serve harsher punishments, not that the laws themselves are stricter.

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900010289/senate-approve...

https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=96229&page=1

https://www.wpxi.com/news/local/man-who-killed-pittsburgh-po...

> It varies by state, but killing a police dog can put you in jail for 10 years (and this has happened) and that is a federal law. There are some states pursuing stricter measures themselves where killing a canine officer is equivalent to killing a human officer.

Killing another person can get you life in prison or capital punishment (depending on state) that's way worse than 10 years.

There IS a law for 10 years. There ARE some states that make it like killing a human officer. The MAX for killing a person is death penalty.

See where your argument loses some teeth?

  and that is a federal law.

There is no such Federal law, as Federal law has no nexus in a local police encounter (unless there is a civil rights element).

Or one encounters federal police. DHS is out there and on patrol now.

There is no such Federal law. Animal cruelty to a dog owned by a Federal agency would be a state statute.

Exactly. The only Federal Law re animals is the Animal Welfare act, which only has to do with research animals. All 50 states have animal cruelty laws.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1368

18 U.S. Code § 1368 - Harming animals used in law enforcement

(a) Whoever willfully and maliciously harms any police animal, or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be fined under this title and imprisoned not more than 1 year. If the offense permanently disables or disfigures the animal, or causes serious bodily injury to or the death of the animal, the maximum term of imprisonment shall be 10 years.

I love learning from my mistakes! I misread the preamble (for lack of a better word) to the Animal Welfare Act’s Federal website. It says it is the only Federal Law addressing animals... or the research of: https://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/animal-welfare-act

https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=96229&page=1

I imagine $30k to be cheap for a bomb dog. Service dogs with the bare minimum of tasks (2 + a general training) for people with disabilities go for $15k+ trained.

> often carries a worse punishment than attacking an actual police officer.

Do you have any source on this? I'd be very surprised to hear that it was true.

I’m not aware of any jurisdictions where police dogs are considered officers or where attacking a police dog carries a harsher punishment than attacking a police officer.

This made me really mad last year: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/108562071/police-shoot-fami...

TL;DR police looking for somebody went to the wrong address, shot the family dog because it "attacked" a police dog (which was "unharmed by the incident"), and casually told the owners on their way out the door that their dog had died.

Well, police training in the US takes on average 19 weeks, whereas in Germany it takes at least 130 weeks (https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_7709638).

It takes 12-14 month to become a cosmetologist...

That event took place in New Zealand, not the US.

In the famous Ruby Ridge incident, a Federal sniper shot the Weaver's dog from long distance... because it barked.

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