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Originally Posted by Bodo  Not trying to take the dogs side here but wondering what dogs chasing schoolchildren means. Were they having fun with the kids, were they trying to do harm? I agree with Hokisteph5 that most rotties would look like they were charging only wanting to be petted or get some attention! |
It is unreasonable to expect the general public, or a police officer, to be able to discern the difference between an intense interest in attention and an intense interest in prey. The dog got shot because it was running at large, and no one in their right mind is going to give a strange dog the benefit of the doubt when a person is at risk of injury, precisely because there IS doubt when it comes to what triggered the behavior...and no time for dog-therapy or to call an evaluator to the scene.
The ONLY solution to the problem is to hold OWNERS responsible for the actions of their dogs and to nail them HARD for allowing them to run at large. Until that happens to a degree that people are not willing to risk going to jail because they can't keep their dogs confined, this kind of thing will continue.