11 Pound Dog was "Presenting a Threat to an Officer"

First of all, as has already been said, to the people saying "hur hur! small dogs can't hurt you!" Yes, they can. The bite doesn't hurt any less or penetrate any less deeply because it's three inches in surface area or nine. However, to the people comparing dog bites to those of guinea pigs or rats, you're making wildly inaccurate generalizations. The elongated incisors of a rodent cause deep, nasty puncture wounds that the blunt, shorter teeth of a dachsund cannot even possibly hope to emulate. Compare this to this.

Secondly, a domestic dog has a zero to none chance of carrying rabies in this day and age. It has been all but eradicated in the domestic pet population. To try and claim that the officer was fearful of contracting a disease from the bite is beyond ignorant.

The officer should have used pepper spray. Lethal force was unnecessary, callous and reveals a remarkable inability to take threat assessment accurately, and decide what level of force is necessary. His blatantly cruel attitude toward the owners after the fact demonstrates even further that he's just another cop who joined the force because his gun is an extension of his dick, and he loves to cock slap people.

VB wrote:

Secondly, a domestic dog has a zero to none chance of carrying rabies in this day and age. It has been all but eradicated in the domestic pet population. To try and claim that the officer was fearful of contracting a disease from the bite is beyond ignorant.

Not in the States. All reports I've read have said rabies is spreading westward at an increasing rate, and while domestic animal cases are still the lowest out of all reported cases, they're also increasing.

AngryRobotsInc wrote:

VB wrote:

Secondly, a domestic dog has a zero to none chance of carrying rabies in this day and age. It has been all but eradicated in the domestic pet population. To try and claim that the officer was fearful of contracting a disease from the bite is beyond ignorant.

Not in the States. All reports I've read have said rabies is spreading westward at an increasing rate, and while domestic animal cases are still the lowest out of all reported cases, they're also increasing.

Rabies is increasing in wildlife, but it is fairly well contained in the Eastern portion of the U.S. In fact, measures have been taken by several states, including mine, to drop feed laced with vaccination around the borders of states that currently don't have a rabies problem but share a border with states that do to prevent just that. I just had this very conversation with two wildlife experts at a conference yesterday. Unless you'd like to question their knowledge of the situation compared with your awesome Google skills? Because after a quick search of my own, I'm fairly certain that the website you're getting your info from is the CDC 4 Kids webpage that was last updated in 2003.

None of this effects the fact that with increasing vaccination over the last 50+ years, rabies has been pretty much eliminated in our pet population.

theweirdkind wrote:

This just pisses me off.

Quote :

Danville's police chief says one of his
officers acted properly by shooting and killing an 11-year-old
miniature dachshund that ran at him while growling.

How much of a threat could an 11-year-old dog be?

My thoughts exactly. Unless the dachshund had rabies, I can't see how shooting him would be justified.

It depends if the dog had its shots or not, really. I mean, if the dog was very aggressive and obviously hadn't been trained well, then it can be a reasonable assumption the owners may not have cared enough to get him his shots.

It was 11 years old. I think it's had plenty of time to have shots.

It's NOT an oobvious assumption to make, Max. If a dog barks at you, is your first thought, "Oh no, that dog could have rabies, better plug it one"? No, this cop totally overestimated A SMALL DOG. People are trying to argue that it was SENSIBLE to KILL AN 11LB DOG WITH A GUN.

Rodent teeth are not comparable to dog teeth.

Didn't the cop have a baton? Pepper spay? A taser? Surely the guy was wearing trousers, which would have protected him for the second it would take to hit it away? And that's IF the dog actually bit him. Dogs BARK. The RUN at people.

Why are we saying it's the owner's fault for not training the dog well? Sure, some people suck at training, and little dogs can be bastards, but does that warrant shooting it? Do you fully grasp what that man did? A domestic animal barked at him so he decided it was a good idea to KILL it. That is NOT the sort of person I trust with a firearm.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

*sings*

Jam that taser in the flesh, JAM IT RIGHT IN! OH YEAH, OH YEAH! Cus they might have a time bomb under tjheir coat! OH YESH! OH YESH! SHOOT THEM IN THE LEGS! Cus they might not want to get arrested and might try to FLEE! OH YEAH, OH YEAH! Just life ain't no right, it's a fucking PRIVILIGE! Oh yeah, oh yeah! And we'll fire rapidly into your gut if we don't like the cut of your giff, oh yeah, oh yeah!

That was beautiful. I'm going to make it into a song RIGHT NOW.

Ah, singing something is just my way of telling people I think their opinion is moronic/trolling/getting marginally enraged.

OH YEAH, OH YEAH!

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

It was 11 years old. I think it's had plenty of time to have shots.

It's NOT an oobvious assumption to make, Max. If a dog barks at you, is your first thought, "Oh no, that dog could have rabies, better plug it one"? No, this cop totally overestimated A SMALL DOG. People are trying to argue that it was SENSIBLE to KILL AN 11LB DOG WITH A GUN.

Well, let's see what GI Joe has to say about it:



Knowing is half the battle!

Oh, on the serious side, weren't you ever taught to treat all unknown animals as dangerous? And I'm not saying HUR HUR HUR, IT'S OK TO SHOOT A TINY DOG BECAUSE I HAVE A SMALL PENIS or whatev. I'm just pointing out that yes, it is reasonable to assume an unknown animal can be dangerous. *gasp* Wow, common sense.

Well, clearly that cop learnt everything about staying safe from dogs from cartoons. That actually makes SENSE.

I wonder if he learnt about touching from that sort of thing too.

"IF SOMEBODY TRIES TO TOUCH YOU IN A PLACE OR A WAY THAT MAKES YOU FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE THAT'S NOOOOOOO GOOOOOOD! So first, you jump on them! And then you hit them six times with your head! And then you run and collect some rings!"

Maximilia wrote:

It depends if the dog had its shots or not, really. I mean, if the dog was very aggressive and obviously hadn't been trained well, then it can be a reasonable assumption the owners may not have cared enough to get him his shots.

Not really, no. The reasonable assumption is: "Someone paid hundreds of dollars for a full-blooded toy breed. Obviously they care enough about it to get it its shots."

Besides that, however, there's the fact that it's illegal not to get your dog/cat/ferret vaccinated for rabies. You can skimp on the distemper, feline leukemia, etc. shots if you're that cheap, but if you get caught with a dog that isn't up to date on its rabies vaccination, you're breaking the law.

Once again. Restraining a dog of that size is not that hard. There was no need to shoot him.

VB wrote:

AngryRobotsInc wrote:

VB wrote:

Secondly, a domestic dog has a zero to none chance of carrying rabies in this day and age. It has been all but eradicated in the domestic pet population. To try and claim that the officer was fearful of contracting a disease from the bite is beyond ignorant.

Not in the States. All reports I've read have said rabies is spreading westward at an increasing rate, and while domestic animal cases are still the lowest out of all reported cases, they're also increasing.

Rabies is increasing in wildlife, but it is fairly well contained in the Eastern portion of the U.S. In fact, measures have been taken by several states, including mine, to drop feed laced with vaccination around the borders of states that currently don't have a rabies problem but share a border with states that do to prevent just that. I just had this very conversation with two wildlife experts at a conference yesterday. Unless you'd like to question their knowledge of the situation compared with your awesome Google skills? Because after a quick search of my own, I'm fairly certain that the website you're getting your info from is the CDC 4 Kids webpage that was last updated in 2003.

None of this effects the fact that with increasing vaccination over the last 50+ years, rabies has been pretty much eliminated in our pet population.

Actually, I get my information from our own local reports here in VA, which has already had 200+ reported cases of rabies this year. While yes, if the domesticated animal is vaccinated, the risk is really low, if it exists at all, one can't know by just looking that someone has had their dog/cat/what have you vaccinated. Some people aren't going to care one bit at all that it's against the law, and honestly, if those people didn't care enough to get their dog trained for aggression issues and/or restrained, I wouldn't put it past them to not care to keep it up to date on shots.

AngryRobotsInc wrote:

one can't know by just looking that someone has had their dog/cat/what have you vaccinated.

One can, however, safely assume that they have. Or at the very least, that any dog you meet won't have rabies. Because it's so rare as to almost never happen. There were less than 400 domestic cases of rabies reported last year, of which only 79 were dogs. Compared to over 74 million dogs owned in the U.S. So you have a 1 in 1,067,567 chance of being bitten by a rabid dog.

Yes, I can see where I was wrong. Rabid dogs are a dangerous epidemic in America, and that officer was absolutely right to fear for his life.

Personally, I seriously doubt the officer had a fear of rabies on his mind when he pulled the gun. I think he saw the yapping dog, failed to actually remember that guns are deadly force, and shot it.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Personally, I seriously doubt the officer had a fear of rabies on his mind when he pulled the gun. I think he saw the yapping dog, failed to actually remember that guns are deadly force, and shot it.

You're giving him more credit than I'm willing to. I think he saw the yapping dog, sneered, pulled his gun and gleefully and maliciously shot it because it's a stupid fucking dog, and it had the bad luck to inconvenience a guy who gets hard at the thought of using his weapon.

That dog wasn't presenting a threat either. That's just the local cop's desperate claim to keep from getting into shit about hiring a guy who knows about as much about gun control as he does about nuclear physics.

I am well aware that guinea pig bites =/= dog bites. The point I was making was that small animals are not necessarily harmless. Nevertheless, the odds of a single small, non-venomous creature being able to cause lethal harm are very, very small, which is why lethal force is rarely indicated when they attack/snarl/makes pests of themselves.

Now, if you had a whole pack of daschunds, on the other hand...

Lady Anne wrote:

I am well aware that guinea pig bites =/= dog bites. The point I was making was that small animals are not necessarily harmless. Nevertheless, the odds of a single small, non-venomous creature being able to cause lethal harm are very, very small, which is why lethal force is rarely indicated when they attack/snarl/makes pests of themselves.

Now, if you had a whole pack of daschunds, on the other hand...

I plan to conquer the world with a dachsund army.

InkWeaver wrote:

Lady Anne wrote:

I am well aware that guinea pig bites =/= dog bites. The point I was making was that small animals are not necessarily harmless. Nevertheless, the odds of a single small, non-venomous creature being able to cause lethal harm are very, very small, which is why lethal force is rarely indicated when they attack/snarl/makes pests of themselves.

Now, if you had a whole pack of daschunds, on the other hand...

I plan to conquer the world with a dachsund army.

Hm...

Spoiler:

Lady Anne wrote:

I am well aware that guinea pig bites =/= dog bites. The point I was making was that small animals are not necessarily harmless. Nevertheless, the odds of a single small, non-venomous creature being able to cause lethal harm are very, very small, which is why lethal force is rarely indicated when they attack/snarl/makes pests of themselves.

Now, if you had a whole pack of daschunds, on the other hand...

Yeah, that's the point I was making as well, just because a dog is small does not mean that it is harmless. I've had to go to the hospital because of a bite from a juvenile 0.5 lb rat. Just because the dog was small, doesn't mean that the dog was harmless and thus the officer would've been justified using non-lethal force against the dog. In my mind, shooting the dog was a (poor) knee-jerk reaction.

HOWEVER, as a microbiologist, I can say that the fear of disease absolutely does not justify his actions. Dogs are required to be vaccinated against rabies, and as such odds are pretty high that the dog would be vaccinated and the owners could provide proof of vaccination. If the dog wasn't (and even as a precaution) the rabies vaccine can be given prophylactically and pretty much eliminate the risk for rabies, especially if the bite is on a limb. As for other diseases, provided the cop wasn't a retard and went to the doctor if it became infected, odds are very low that it would be anything seriously dangerous.

Notomys mordax wrote:

Lady Anne wrote:

I am well aware that guinea pig bites =/= dog bites. The point I was making was that small animals are not necessarily harmless.

Yeah, that's the point I was making as well, just because a dog is small does not mean that it is harmless. I've had to go to the hospital because of a bite from a juvenile 0.5 lb rat.

:bang:

Notomys you MORON, what the fuck were we just saying about rodent bites not being comparable to dog bites?. Also, rats are traditionally carriers of disease. They hang in garbage bins and dumps. THAT is why you had to get the bite checked.

A dog bite will hurt, but on the whole, an 11lb dog will not rip a piece of flesh out of your calf. Also, the dog was 11 years old. Not exactly the most sprightly age for tearing people limb from limb.

Stop saying that the cop had a right to think it was a good idea to shoot a dog. A gun is supposed to be a warning (when it's not killing people), but for a dumb animal it can only be used to kill because an animal has no idea what a gun is or does, and cannot be threatened by it.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Also, rats are traditionally carriers of disease. They hang in garbage bins and dumps.

Dogs just lick their arses and eat garbage and their own vomit.

Seriously Harley, are you really about to argue that dogs' mouths are pristine, disease-free places?

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Notomys you MORON, what the fuck were we just saying about rodent bites not being comparable to dog bites?. Also, rats are traditionally carriers of disease. They hang in garbage bins and dumps. THAT is why you had to get the bite checked.

Harley, don't open your mouth again. Ever.

She was bitten by a domestic rat, which are some of the cleanest animals on the planet and very seldom found in garbage bins.