Sad Dog Stories... and Tips to Not Have This be Your Dog

This week’s subject is brought to you by one of my friends via Facebook. J I know, can’t even avoid homework anymore, no matter how hard I try, sigh. All joking aside, one of my friends posted an article about protecting your dog from lawenforcement. Makes you kind of shake your head, doesn’t it? You’d think the officers are there to protect things, not to need to be protected from, right? And to be honest that was the original take I had on this post, but then I started reading more and realized this was a well written article with some good points. The very actions that come naturally to your very well-mannered and sweet dog can very easily be seen as a threat to law enforcement officials, sometimes with deadly consequences.

         

          For example just last weekMichael Paxton was playing Frisbee in his backyard in Austin, Texas with his Australian cattle dog, Cisco when a domestic disturbance call was made down the street. An officer responded to the wrong house and when Paxton walked around his house to get something from his truck he was approached by the officer with his gun drawn and told to put his hands up. Cisco came to the area and like any dog would likely do in the presence of a stranger they perceived to be threatening their person Cisco began to bark. Reportedly despite Paxton assuring the officer that Cisco was not dangerous the officer supposedly took aim and fired, killing Cisco. Sadly even though the officer then realized he was at the wrong house, there’s no way to regain Cisco’s life.

            Another story I found told the story of a dog who ran out into his own back yard and wound up dead. The police were tracking a suspect through residential back yards in Kalamazoo, MI and a resident, not knowing the police were in their backyard, opened the door to let their dog out, the dog, reacting as dogs tend to do, charged and barked to protect their home, a totally normal action, and was shot and killed.

            Then I found the story of Rocco a Doberman who was peacefully in his own backyard in Louisville, KY when police entered the backyard during a foot chase. Rocco, upset as any dog would be in that situation began barking and jumping on the intruders into his space. For reacting as any typical dog would do in that situation, Rocco like the two dogs I’ve mentioned before was shot and killed. Even more tragic, he didn’t die immediately, he crawled into his dog house crying in pain and died there.

            No, I’m not trying to be depressing with this post, I felt the need to show these three stories from different parts of the country that are all dogs reacting as I know my dogs would and wound up being shot by officers that felt threatened by them. Which makes it hard to blame them, since adrenaline is high, in those situations, I just wonder if things couldn’t have been different for at least one of these dogs. The best advice I’ve found is if you know you will be dealing with law enforcement is to make sure your dog is restrained before the officers arrive. Now in the articles I found two of these owners thought their dogs were safe in their own back yard. The article also recommends to alert the officers using your voice “Let me put up my dog, I am putting up my dog!” This way they don’t misconstrue your actions, and hopefully you can prevent a tragedy. It also recommends if you see officers in your neighborhood to bring your dogs inside to help prevent problems and to put signs on your fence to alert officers that dogs are present, so they are aware if they must enter your yard without warning. Hopefully none of us will ever face this tragic situation.