Cops and Dogs

Not long ago, as I posted here, Fritz tried his darnedest to take a chunk out of our neighbor cop. The cop's visit was entirely friendly, and he arguably didn't deserve that kind of treatment at the time. I've since heard that the cop in question has vowed never again to visit our property, which I must admit is the outcome I'd hoped for.

In this particular case, even though the cop was very heavily armed, a tragic denouement for Fritz was unlikely. First, one hesitates to shoot the dog of a neighbor. Second, the heavily armed cop was surrounded by two equally-armed people who would be certain to take violent retaliation rather personally.

But as my hero Radley Balko reports in this Daily Beast article, we're lucky the circumstances were as they were or I'd be explaining to my landlady why (at least) one of her dogs got shot.

Cops shooting household pets has been in the news a lot lately, largely as a result of Balko's efforts. And in most of those news accounts, one has to wonder what the cops are thinking at the time. Here, for example, is an account of heroic Cincinnati cops defending themselves against a five-pound chihuahua. Thank god no one was seriously hurt - except for the kid who owned the dog.

Cops never, ever seem to pay a price for their brutality in these cases. I'd expect, since they so routinely fear for their lives at the sight of a bounding pup, that the death and dismemberment rate among unarmed mail carriers, meter readers and UPS drivers must be simply appalling. Yet in fact such service people, whose visits to private property are generally more welcomed by the property owners, rarely if ever suffer any attacks at all. So...WTF?