If you have a pit bull in America, it had better never leave it's yard.
Because one of the millions of people carrying a gun is looking to shoot something. If someone is not available. And cops are people first you know.
Guns are GREAT. Shooting something or someone threatening is our pastime. And our new national motto.
But let me ask this. IF it was a neighbor who shot the dog, and the dogs owner hit the neighbor upside the head for shooting the dog, and then the neighbor shot the dog owner in self defense, then it would all be ok. Right? Of course it would.
Aggressive people are made for shooting. Dogs, not so much.
The dog owner has a responsibility to control his dog. Most places have leash laws and if your dog gets out and not on a leash then it's fair ******* game!!!
Sounds like a mix of responsibilities for this incident
1. leaving a pit bull unsupervised that did receive previous complaints (although no formal record of harm or damage until now)
2. the officer also showing signs, risk or threat of excessive force with a firearm
Those two factors already spell disaster waiting to happen, and they both appear at fault.
3. and lastly, the issue of the officer's response which compounds the other problems.
either it adds additional grief to deal with, or it exposes personality issues with the officer.
If he didn't already have personality or criminal violence issues, then saying callous things like this, given today's media and how they will twist things around, creates more problems
Overall, I'm sorry the family lost their beloved pet in this manner.
For every case of a pitbull abused, abandoned or mistreated who didn't deserve it,
there seem to be cases of pitbulls who should have been stopped after the first sign of aggression before they killed a pet or person and had to be put to death.
Stories like this bias me against pitbulls: given the fact you can't tell which ones are inbred to have the vicious tendencies, I think the entire neighborhood should agree whether or not to allow each particular dog to live there, and to share responsibility for that decision; and if they don't all agree to the responsibilities and risks, then the dog should not be allowed.
I know that is strict, but I don't see how else to avoid these tragedies, either way. Either all the people in a neighborhood agree on a particular dog being there, and agree on a plan to cover responsibility if anything happens, or don't allow them if not everyone agrees to meet the safety standards voted on by everyone affected.
Such a policy might have saved this poor dog's life. If to settle the complaints, the neighbors all agreed the dog should always be supervised 24 hours without exception, then either someone could have been there to restrain the dog and prevent the officer from shooting and killing the dog, or the dog would have been removed from the neighborhood if complaints could not be settled otherwise. So either way the dog could have been spared.
