Hacker News Reader

Comment by rcavezza | Hacker News Reader

I really wish police would use #5 to deal with dogs instead of shooting them. I've seen too many videos of this recently.

View on HN

Honestly, they could probably "deal with" half the dogs by patting their own thighs while saying "Who's a good puppy! Who's a good puppy!", and optionally giving the dogs a good pet.

Especially since most breeds aren't aggressive. Especially the bigger, more impressive breeds, who are usually much more friendly or just stoic than the littler ones.

The problem is in the tiny word "usually", I suppose. Almost every dog that attacks a human does so for the first time, to the complete amazement of it's owners.

Shouldn't dogs that attack humans be put down in any case? I thought that would be standard consequence if a dog bites a person.

True, a dog that attacks a human is possibly dangerous.

Unfortunately many police forces have no training in dogs, and so officers don't know the difference between an aggressive attacking dog and a playful bouncing dog, and thus shoot them.

EDIT: It's especially unfortunate if the dog has been tasered and is safely caught in a noose at the end of a stick (http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_22895415/police-dog-han...), or if the police have visited a family to tell them that their son has died, and then they shoot his dog while they're there. (http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/henrico-police-shoot-pet-a...)

> aggressive attacking dog and a playful bouncing dog

Hard to tell that until it's too late.

It's generally pretty obvious if you know dogs.

I don't want to know dogs and don't want to be forced to know dogs. Just saying - I am not in favor of shooting nice dogs, but dog owners really should understand that they can't force their dog lives on other people.

Force them on other people how? You mean like when the police decide to occupy your house to spy on your neighbors? Totally reasonable for them to shoot your dogs. If you wanted the dogs to live, you shouldn't have gotten in the way of the police.

Well right, that's fine, but a police officer who in the course of their job may have to encounter dogs, should most certainly have even the minimal training in animal behavior and guidance in how to handle potentially dangerous animals short of shooting them.

True

Perhaps you shouldn't become a police officer than.

I believe you're unfamiliar with the modern intimidation/punishment technique police use of killing family pets, especially in front of children, if at all possible. I'm sure the next step in the WarOnTerror(tm) will be shooting the kids themselves. Preferably in front of the mother for maximum intimidation value. Why yes, I am disgusted to be an American.

Read: http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americ...

Why should they? If a man attacks another man, we tend not to kill him, at least not immediately as is done with dogs. There is usually some hope of rehabilitation.

Comparing an attacking man to an attacking dog is a little apples-to-oranges. It's probably less likely that the dog can be 'reformed,' and a reformed person is a lot more useful to society than a reformed dog. They're called human rights for a reason.

Oddly, we don't deal the same with people who abuse animals.

Animals aren't people.

Who is "we"? I think a lot of people are against animal abuse.

Is it a common consequence? Yup. Is it unethical and barbaric? Yup.

What would be an alternative? I don't want to be threatened by dogs on the street, and I definitely don't want to worry about my kid being mauled by a dog. I guess the rationale is that if a dog did it once, it'll be more likely to do it again. How would you counteract that?

This is not about dogs on the street, it is about the police entering someones home and shooting the dog. In a lot of those cases the police was there without any good reason.

Nothing in the OP mentioned entering homes to shoot animals.

Try living in an area of the world full of stray dogs... sooner or later you'll start having "genocidal" thoughts like "why don't we just a few drop tons of poisoned dog food from an airplane across all city?"... I actually found myself thinking of this and wondered (for a few seconds) about the cruelty of it.

It's not a good idea because your city would then be full of poisoned food and dead decomposing dog corpses.

If you do live where the city or country doesn't have centres that humanely kill strays and/or the government doesn't have a protocol for dealing with them, get some thick boots, a strong stick and hope you don't run into one of the 10+-strong packs that roam certain neighbourhoods.

In case there's a stray dog that's aggressive towards people and lives near your home and you definitely positively must put it down, a common humane poison is antifreeze - it first induces drowsiness, then stops the heart. A pretty literal "put to sleep".

I'm a DVM, and you're mistaken about antifreeze. It causes kidney failure over a period of several days, leading to a slow, agonizing death while toxins normally filtered out by the kidneys build up in the bloodstream. The dogs with antifreeze toxicity that I attempted to treat were quite obviously suffering.

...please don't post poisoning advice on a public forum ever again, you never know what use can these be put to :) ...even more so if your facts are wrong!

That turned dark and specific very quickly, thanks?

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/07/%E2%80%9Cwhy_did_you_shoot_m...

Section on "dogs."

I too would prefer that police not shoot dogs if they can avoid doing so. However, disabling a dog with a kick doesn't sound that easy to do. If it responds to a kick in the ribs, great. If it doesn't, you are now off balance.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com