January/February 2011 - Dogs Naturally Magazine

y: Pat Miller
OFFICERS
It used to be a rarity to hear of a dog being shot by a law enforcement
officer. Not any more. Something has happened in our culture and
our law enforcement communities to cause an exponential increase
in tragic incidents such as the one that occurred on September 12th,
2010, at a crowded street festival in Washington DC. On that afternoon,
Officer Scott Fike shot and killed Parrot, a Pit Bull/Shar Pei
mix who was attending the event with his foster caretaker. Parrot had
been minding his own business when the owner of a small poodle
allowed her dog to approach Parrot. Parrot bit the other dog. According
to reports, the incident had resolved and Parrot’s caretaker
had him under control when the police officer approached and alpharolled
the dog. When Parrot attempted to defend himself the officer
threw him down a set of cement stairs and shot him.
Other recent cases from the Police-Killing-Dogs Hall of Shame include
Bear, a Siberian Husky who was shot by an off-duty federal police
officer for engaging in what was probably rough play between
two dogs at a dog park, or at worse a normal, non-serious “scuffle”
between two dogs,” and the killing of two Labrador Retrievers in their
own home; the home of the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland,
when police officers served a search warrant at the wrong address.
In November, in Seattle, Washington, a well-loved Newfoundland,
Rosie, escaped her yard, frightened passers-by, and was eventually
shot by police in a neighbor’s fenced back yard, where she could have
easily been safely contained until her owner was located. While some
officer-related dog shootings certainly are more than justified, many,
including the ones described above, are not.
Dr. Randal Lockwood of the American Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals says he sees 250 to 300 incidents per year in media
reports, and estimates another 1,000 aren’t reported. That’s more
than three per day! What is going on??
I worked for 20 years at the Marin Humane Society in Novato, California,
just north of San Francisco, for much of that time as a humane
officer enforcing humane and animal control laws. I can’t recall one
single incident of a dog being shot by a police officer in our county
during that two-decade span. On the rare occasions when a dog
shooting did happen somewhere in the country, there was inevitably
a huge uproar with considerable attention from the media. Today,
apparently, officers shoot and kill dogs around the United States multiple
times daily and it hardly causes a ripple. Most of the time not
much is said about it – it certainly isn’t often picked up by national
news. So what has changed? Several things:
SHOOTING
DOGS
1. Popularization of the Pit Bull. In 1976 when I started working
at Marin, we never saw a Pit Bull in a shelter. Ever. In those days
the only people who owned Pit Bulls were dog fighters, and they
weren’t about to let their dogs end up in shelters. Nor were they
foolish enough to breed dogs who would attack people. They
had to be in the pit with dogs who were fighting each other, and
sometimes separate them when they were fighting. The last thing
they wanted was a dog who would bite a human. Then, in the
1990s, The Humane Society of the United States launched a campaign
to make dogfighting a felony in all 50 states. In their efforts
to educate the public and legislators about the brutally cruel
“sport” they glamorized the breed – and people started wanting
them. Some of these people were responsible dog owners, but
there were also a lot of irresponsible ones. Shelters started seeing
a trickle, then a downpour, finally a flood of Bully dogs, until
today almost every full-service shelter in the country often finds
a preponderance of Pit-type dogs in their kennels. Many other
large, strong breeds – like the Rottweiler, the Cane Corso, the
Presa Canario, the Boerboel, and the American Bulldog – were
also extremely rare in this country until the 1990s and later. Now
they are common. Law enforcement officers in general seem to
be exceptionally reactive to the Bully breeds.
2. Sensitization of Our Society to Dog Bites. In the “good old days,”
if a dog bit a kid, Mom usually asked Junior what he did to the
dog. Today she calls Animal Control first, then her attorney. In
the “good old days,” dogs ran loose a lot, everyone accepted that
dogs were a part of life, that dogs sometimes bit people, and it
was no big deal. Plus, because dogs ran loose a lot, they were better
socialized and probably less likely to bite people. Today, with
a marked increase in responsible dog ownership, dogs don’t run
loose so much, they aren’t as well socialized, and the population
of humans as a whole is a lot less comfortable, and less tolerant,
of dogs being dogs.
3. Dog Mauling and Dog-Related Fatality Statistics. In the mid
1990’s, an average of 20 people per year were killed by dogs in the
U.S. In those pre pit-popularity days, dogs most often implicated
in serious dog bites and dog-related fatalities were breeds like
Huskies and German Shepherds – medium-to-large dogs who
lacked the sheer bulk and determination of many of the Bully
types. In 2009 there were some 32 dog-related fatalities in this
country; 15 allegedly caused by Pitbulls or Pit mixes and three
by Rottweilers or Rottie mixes. At the close of 2010, with 34 fa-
24 January-February 2011 | Dogs Naturally Magazine