Cops run over little old lady's dog...

...and then bill her for damages.

Quote :

Robby, a nine-year-old Australian Shepherd, ran away on December 31
after being terrified by fireworks, and made it onto a nearby motorway,
her owner Heidi Schwark, 65, told the Bild daily on Monday.

"A day after New Year's, the police phoned me and said that my Robby
had been run over on the motorway.... The police claimed that a
motorist had hit and killed Robby," said Schwark, photographed
clutching his picture.

Turned out that the police had deliberately hit the dog in order to get it off the road, and to add insult to injury, they billed the old lady for damages to the police vehicle used to cream her beloved pet.

Quote :

Contacted by the AFP news agency, a police spokeswoman said that the
officers "were confronted by something posing a danger, this 'wonderful
dog' tearing about to and fro on both carriageways of a motorway."

"At a time like this, a police officer has to weigh up the lives of
people against that of a dog," spokeswoman Jessica Wessel said.

"You can imagine that in the dark, on New Year's Eve with explosions
and everything all around, a dog being chased by strangers is not going
to calm down, and you're not going to catch him."

Schwark, however, is incensed.

"They close off motorways even for ducks. Why not for my Robby? Then
they could have caught him safely - and my beloved would still be
alive," the pensioner told the paper.

Eh, I can see both sides of the argument, but poor dog.

Most other people would probably have attempted a rescue. Running over the dog might have actually caused a larger accident, they were lucky it didn't. I'd like to know more about the fireworks though. I can't stand backyard fireworks set off by people who have no thought for neighbours and animals.

Why the hell didn't they just run it off the road by chasing it or herding it or something? Didn't have to purée the poor thing.

Bad enough that they deliberately ran over the dog, but to bill her for it, too... [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

"Oh, hey, we killed your dog. Give us money now."

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] Poor lady. Shouldn't they reimburse her?

It's not that hard to catch a pet dog.

1. Go to pet store.
2. Buy treats.
3. Throw treats in the direction you would like the dog to go, taking care not to go in that direction yourself if the dog is frightened of you.
4. Cautiously approach the dog with more treats until you can grab it by the scruff.
5. Put dog in car.
6. Take dog home to Mommy.

I've had to do this multiple times with various neighbor's dogs. This is not difficult.

I don't think difficulty was the issue, I think laziness was. The cops probably didn't even want to step out of the car and thought this was an acceptable course of action, because Robby was "just a dog".

I also suspect that they weren't the sharpest tools in the shed, either, because they didn't anticipate hitting something would dent the front of the car.

Yeah, so lazy eejits.

Couldn't they have tasered the dog or something if they really thought it might be a threat?

No I'm not saying the police should go around doing that. But it'd make more sense then hitting it with a fucking car.