My own experiences with insufferably arrogant dog owners is such that I'm very much inclined to side with the cops on this one.

As Horwood Beer-Master and Griz have noted, a great many dog owners underestimate the hostile reaction of which their own pets are capable when they encounter strangers.

My late-afternoon walks in a nearby park / nature reserve are frequently marred by scofflaw dog owners who ignore the signposts stipulating that dogs must be restrained on a leash. Each time I enter the park, I necessarily carry a large knife in a cardboard "scabbard" on my belt. On three occasions in the past eighteen months, I've had to draw that knife and swing it around in order to ward off a large, threatening dog (or, on one occasion, two menacing dogs)... whilst simultaneously cursing and berating the slack-jawed asswipes who have allowed their animal/s to endanger me.

I'm surprised that the dog owner is getting so much support because I remember we had a thread where some cops visited a suburban home for some or other reason while the owners were out, the family's chihuahua was on the porch yapping at them, the cops shot the dog (multiple times) and left the dead dog with a note saying "we shot your dog, regards dumbfucksville P.D."

I can't find it now so I'll paraphrase; I took the position that it wasn't necessary to shoot the chihuahua multiple times because how much of a threat can a chihuahua be anyway, shut it in the porch or put a flower pot over it or whatever, but there was no shortage of responses saying that US' uniformed heroes know best and were justified, that the chihuahua could have carried rabies AIDS and ebola, and that it might flown through the air ripping out throats like the rabbit in Holy Grail.

Yet here when we have a large dog loose at night in a potentially confrontational situation with its owners, where no gun was brandished let alone mulitple shots fired, almost everyone is just taking the owner's word? Pfft.

Griz_ wrote:...On three separate occasions (twice as a kid and once as an adult) I've had a dog owner tell "don't worry, my dog doesn't bite" just before it bit me.

And I bet just after you were bitten it was "aw, he's just being playful", or something along the lines of it being your fault for (somehow) getting their dog "overexcited".

While the cops actions as described seem over the top I too get very annoyed with arrogant dog owners who think their pooches are just the most precious thing in the world and shouldn't have to suffer being restrained by a leash. I own two dogs myself and it really pisses me off because my dogs are always leashed or otherwise under control. Yet just in the past few years I've had to deal with several situations in which my dogs either were attacked or ended up fighting with unleashed dogs and every time it's ended with the other owner screaming at me about my dogs. I'm sure if any of them had blogs they probably went and wrote up some slanted post about how I was in the wrong.

purplerat wrote:While the cops actions as described seem over the top I too get very annoyed with arrogant dog owners who think their pooches are just the most precious thing in the world and shouldn't have to suffer being restrained by a leash. I own two dogs myself and it really pisses me off because my dogs are always leashed or otherwise under control. Yet just in the past few years I've had to deal with several situations in which my dogs either were attacked or ended up fighting with unleashed dogs and every time it's ended with the other owner screaming at me about my dogs. I'm sure if any of them had blogs they probably went and wrote up some slanted post about how I was in the wrong.

Yes, annoying when people see their dogs "freedoms" as being above the safety of other people.
Going back many years (about 1987), when my daughter was only about 4 years old, a neighbour of our rented house had a savage german shepherd...large, aggressive, it had bitten several people before. Of course it was never on a leash, and her side fence was a broken old wood paling job which the dog would angrily try to get through to get at my wife when she hung up the laundy. Myself and a large Islander fellow from down the road (whose kid had been bitten) repeatedly warned the woman that we had guns and wouldn't be afraid to use them on her hell hound if we got the chance. We were told "The poor darling just wants to say hello" and "he won't hurt you, he's just being friendly", or "he's just giving a playful nip". Sure he was.
One day while I was asleep after night shift, I was awakened by my daughter screaming and my wife shouting outside the back of the house. I sat up and heard loud barking as well. Straight away I was pretty damn sure I knew what was happening, so I grabbed an old double barrel shotgun I had bought a while before which was in the bedside cupboard (no gun laws back then, no one bought gun safes) and a couple of shells and raced to the back door. I was horrified to see the german shepherd standing centimeters from my daughter, who was pressed up against the back of the house beside the back door while the dog with bared teeth and a savage look in it's eyes barked and lunged at her repeatedly. My daughter was screaming, my wife was yelling and looking for something to hit the dog with...and the neighbour was standing on her side of the fence soothingly calling "Come here darling, come on baby" to the savage out of control dog. it had busted through the shoddy fence while my wife was watering the lawn and my daughter played nearby.

I'm proud to say I nearly blew the fucking dog in half with a blast from my old 12 gauge from about 30 centimeters away. Silence. My daughter was crying in a heap on the ground, scratches on her arms and a couple on her face, the neighbour with her stupid mouth hanging open, and my wife rushed over to pick up our daughter whose only real complaint was "That was loud".
"I'm going to call the police!" Screamed the neighbour. "Too late, I'm going to call them myself", said I. I told them what i'd done, they sent a car around. We were all questioned for a short while, and they let me off with a written caution for "discharging a firearm in the town area". There were plenty of police records of previous complaints against this dog and the owners were close to having it removed from them.

Sometimes, a dog is just being "friendly", but sometimes it's potentially going to turn out very nasty. Your dilemma is deciding which is which before acting one way or the other against the threat.

I'm not sure that a story in which a 4 year old witnessing a vicious dog blown "nearly in half" is alleged to only really be upset by a loud noise is a lot more reliable than the one in the OP, if that.

I suppose both are about as reliable as any story found on the internet absent any further corroboration. I think the moral of the stories are that cops can be real assholes and dog owners can be irresponsible as well as being assholes. I've certainly experienced both first hand, not that I'm particularly worried about convincing anybody over the internet of the validity of those experiences.

Easy to be a critic but if my child is at point A being menaced by a dog and I am at point B then I wouldn't take a detour to point C to collect and load my gun before going to point A if my child was in any danger - I'd just go directly to point A and boot the fucker away. It's quicker and I wouldn't have to wash any doggy bits out of their hair afterwards

If point C was between points A and B, I'd grab the shotgun.

Personally I'd keep my shotgun well away from my child as opposed to leaning it against the wall in the hallway or something, so it would necessarily be a detour.

It would be a significant detour for me as well, with safe storage laws it would involve a lock and separate storage of ammunition. Right or wrong, the poster's situation may have been different.

If a cop shot my dog, there'd be a dead cop. Put me in jail afterwords I don't care, I'll get a good lawyer who can and will defend the law says if, "If my life, my family's life, or my property is in jeopardy, I am authorized to use lethal force." If a cop pulled a gun on my dog without due justification he is not above the law.

That video of the SWAT team that burst into a home and shot the owners dog during a "drug bust" I don't care. Even with a warrant dogs bark and dogs instinctively protect their owners.

Leash laws are one thing (and something I also have an issue with since it is nothing short of zero tolerance since I walk my 12 year old lab without a leash because she is wickedly intelligent and the 7+ cops living in my subdivision including a state trooper never say anything and love her to death) but there is no excuse for the OP. It is not being an arrogant dog owner (of which I proudly am, since my dogs are my family and I treat them and care for them as if they were my family) it is being fed up with authorities thinking they are above and beyond the law.

willhud9 wrote:If a cop shot my dog, there'd be a dead cop. Put me in jail afterwords I don't care, I'll get a good lawyer who can and will defend the law says if, "If my life, my family's life, or my property is in jeopardy, I am authorized to use lethal force." If a cop pulled a gun on my dog without due justification he is not above the law.

I can't help noticing the start of this paragraph disagrees with the end of it. Sometimes dogs behave in ways their owner doesn't expect, this doesn't seem like a good thing to attempt to take someone's life over. Especially someone doing their job and protecting themself.

Thommo wrote:

willhud9 wrote:If a cop shot my dog, there'd be a dead cop. Put me in jail afterwords I don't care, I'll get a good lawyer who can and will defend the law says if, "If my life, my family's life, or my property is in jeopardy, I am authorized to use lethal force." If a cop pulled a gun on my dog without due justification he is not above the law.

I can't help noticing the start of this paragraph disagrees with the end of it. Sometimes dogs behave in ways their owner doesn't expect, this doesn't seem like a good thing to attempt to take someone's life over. Especially someone doing their job and protecting themself.

I said without due justification. If my dog was barking that is not a threat in any reasonable sense. If my dog was lunging and snarling while barking a case can be made. If my dog was clearly acting maliciously aggressive than I am understanding.

The dog in the OP was not AFAWK acting in any reasonable definition of threatening. It was simply off a leash. The cop abused his authority.

willhud9 wrote:If a cop shot my dog, there'd be a dead cop. Put me in jail afterwords I don't care, I'll get a good lawyer who can and will defend the law says if, "If my life, my family's life, or my property is in jeopardy, I am authorized to use lethal force." If a cop pulled a gun on my dog without due justification he is not above the law.

I don't know what sort of laws you have where you live but what you are saying sounds batshit crazy to me. Where I live, deadly force is justifiable if there is imminent fear of death or grievous bodily harm. If you really think that appearing before a judge and your defense is "he shot my dog so I shot the police officer" is going to get you anything but 3 meals a day in a cell for the next 25+ years, you are either out of your mind or living in a place I will be certain to stay well clear of.

willhud9 wrote:
Leash laws are one thing (and something I also have an issue with since it is nothing short of zero tolerance since I walk my 12 year old lab without a leash because she is wickedly intelligent and the 7+ cops living in my subdivision including a state trooper never say anything and love her to death) but there is no excuse for the OP. It is not being an arrogant dog owner (of which I proudly am, since my dogs are my family and I treat them and care for them as if they were my family) it is being fed up with authorities thinking they are above and beyond the law.

How is the law "zero tolerance" if you are allowed to get away with breaking the law? That's the opposite of zero tolerance. And even if you weren't allowed to get away with that's not an issue of zero tolerance, that's simply the law being applied equally to everybody. What you are doing is exactly what you are accusing the cop in the OP of doing; putting yourself above having to follow the law.

willhud9 wrote:I said without due justification.

Right, at the end of the paragraph you said that you'd shoot a cop for killing your dog without justification, at the start you made no such distinction. Totally different things.

"If a cop shot my dog, there'd be a dead cop."
"If a cop pulled a gun on my dog without due justification he is not above the law."

If in fact you'd only use your gun to shoot a police officer in the tiny fraction of events where they entirely without justification threaten your dog then you're being fairly reasonable, if you'd revenge kill a police officer regardless of circumstances you're being bat shit crazy. Presumably you're trying to indicate the former, but this essentially voids the first sentence (fortunately) you just don't mean it.

People own dogs. Dogs sometimes bite people. Society saw that this was a problem. Laws were passed requiring people who own dogs to control them so that other people could go about their business without being bitten. Humans have more rights than dogs.

I have a dog who is 15 now and is a part of our family. I've had several in my life and I do love dogs, but I've noticed that all sense and reason seems to go right out the window for a lot of people when it comes to their dogs. It's a strange thing. They may have some human characteristics and we may love them but they're not people.

No, but in many ways they are better than people. I wish they lived longer.