Dog Shot To Death In New Hampshire park

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Chris Arnoldy (the dog’s owner) should apologize to Coco (hah! I bet you thought this was the dog’s name! It’s the shooter’s name!). Here’s why, straight from the horse’s mouth:

A scream, eh? Your gentle loving dog caused a scream? Bounding happy tail-wagging dogs don’t usually elecit screams.

My dog never goes out of my sight, and he’s trained to follow voice commands. Even then, I don’t let him go leashless unless I’m at a leashless dog park.

All of the police I know usually carry while off duty. There have been plenty of occasions where police have taken heat for not carrying while off duty. (Sorry, no time to look for a cite).

I do think Coco pointed the gun at him though. Adreniline and all.

22

To the beach? To church? To Disneyworld?

There’s a line somewhere. I’d think a walk in the park with your kids might be on the “not carrying side” of the line.

This was supposed to be in defense of a guy who fired 8 or 9 times?

Am I insane to think that a person who empties 15 rounds and believes he only fired once or twice maybe should think about where he brings his gun off-duty?

This is a guy whose judgment I should now trust about how realistic the threat of a 40 pound dog is?

23

I’m not going to take sides on the story itself, because we don’t really know all the details, but I have to comment on the comment above.

I do know, however, that at an OFFLEASH PARK, my SERVICE DOG who works with DISABLED CHILDREN has elicited screams from a 4 year old girl whose parents brought her there with their family pet. She was apparently “afriad of dogs” so they thought this would help.

This was a park where dogs were meant to be offleash, and my guy ran up to them, wagging his tail. He’s a retriever, not even one of them there “scary dogs”.

Hell, my service dogs, when on leash, sometimes elicit screams from kids who come to PET THEM (after asking) when the dog simply turns around and the kids squeal and pull their petting hand away. These are neighbourhood kids here who KNOW my dogs, too. Even a happy bouncy wagging tail puppy running towards them can cause them to scream and run, which of course just encourages dogs to chase.

Truth is, KIDS DON’T KNOW HOW TO BEHAVE AROUND ANIMALS. I teach this in schools every year (which reminds me I do it again in a few weeks…) and parents don’t know how to help… so I’m not willing to take the “your friendly pet, if friendly, shouldn’t have caused a kid to scream.” as a sign the dog was at fault.

24

(Pssst, nursecarmen, no hard feelings :smiley: You still hafta bring your cheesy-fart BC to the park to play with our guys, darnit!)

25

First my disclaimer - I don’t like dogs, I’m uncomfortable around dogs, and I despise dog owners who say things like “Oh, he’s harmless, he’s just being friendly” when I ask them to restrain their dog that is jumping all over me.

Trunk, in many jurisdictions, police officers are required to carry their service pistol when off duty. I dont know if that’s the case in NH

As regards the “8 or 9 shots” thing - the only mention of that in the story is:

“In a copy of the letter forwarded to The Union Leader, Douglas contradicts statements made by Bedford Police that deny that Coco pointed a gun at Arnoldy after shooting eight or nine shots at Arnoldy’s dog Toby.”

So it’s a little unclear who said “eight or nine shots” originally - are the Bedford Police denying that he fired 8 or 9 shots as well as denying that he pointed the gun at Arnoldy? Also, it states that he shot “at” the dog - who knows how many of those shots actually hit the dog?

In this case, I’m willing to give the cop the benefit of the doubt. A 50 lb dog threatening your kids is definitely something to take very seriously. As others have pointed out - if the owner had followed the leash laws, or at the very least kept his own dog in his view so he’d have some possibility of controlling its behavior, none of this would have happened. As far as I’m concerned, the only valid lawsuit here would be the cop suing the dog owner.

26

None taken. Now, if Coco had unloaded his clip at a leashless dog park, I would say that he needs to be strung up by his, erm, cocos. But I know people are jittery about dogs, and Coco may well have been. But it’s Arnoldy’s responsibility to control his dog. Saving that, at least keep it in sight and prepared to act if need be. Sure, Coco may have been spastic and over protective, but he really had no idea if the dog was wild, rabid, tame, or in actuality a cross dressing crack whore monkey in dog costume.

27

Maybe Badge will come in and answer this, but I thought one of the things cops are taught is to shoot to eliminate the threat. In other words, you don’t just shoot once since it may not stop your target.

I love dogs, but under the same circumstances, I would’ve done the same thing.

28

If they’d kept the mutt on a leash, then it wouldn’t have happened. I congratulate the officer at defending his children.

29

I agree with Elenfair that young children don’t necessarily know how to act around animals. My daughter loves a neighbors Yorkie and wants to pet her, but when the dog starts licking her face she squeals like a banshee.

But in this case,

We’re not talking about a dog just running up to them and wagging his tail. This would freak me out.

I will admit that I don’t think he would have reacted the same way had his children not been there. Young children are unpredictable, and dogs don’t always understand commands; when combined in this scenario, this guy felt he had to react to the perceived threat. I don’t know that he’s right, but with these factors and the appearance of the dog (IMHO this dog could look threatening.) I would have felt a threat.

30

I’ve seen a million dogs run up to a million people and kids.

It’s never right and its a definite failure on the part of the dog owner. That is a major problem.

Now, some people freak out, and some take it calmly.

What bugs me about this story is to think that every time I’ve seen people get upset about it, that if they had a gun and the judgment of this officer, they might have put down a dog that didn’t need putting down.

Did this fellow think there was a reasonable chance one of his kids was going to get attacked or was he just pissed off that the dog scared his kids so bad and he knew he could get away with this?

One would certainly like to think he showed perfect judgment in this situation, but I’ve known enough dogs and enough cops to at least have some doubt that shooting a barking dog dead in front of his kids was the best possible solution here.

31

**Why does a guy feel a need to carry a gun while walking with his little children in a park in Manchester, NH?

If he’s carrying his piece while out walking in the park with his kids, where DOESN’T he carry it?**

If NH allows concealed carry, it’s none of anybody’s #%*(#%# BUSINESS “why” he carries a gun because it’s his RIGHT to do so. And thank God he WAS carrying it that day or he might be attending his daughters’ funerals right about now, or have a couple of disfigured kids on his hands and thousands in medical expenses.

32

Ah. Irrrational, overblown fear. That’s pretty much what I thought.

33

Just a note: Many people do not know what aggressive behavior looks like. In fact, dogs are more likely to display aggressive behavior if they are leashed (i.e. protection/police K9 will bark its head off and lunge at the end of his leash when in “take down the perp” mode).

Sheepdogs (this was a chow/belgian mix - note, I rarely trust Chows or chow mixes) tend to circle people, and can indeed bark about it. If the dog was LUNGING, since it was offleash, it would have gotten someone. It was likely circling around, barking, wanting to be chased (i.e. playbowing, often mistaken for “he’s gonna poooounce!”). Agressively or not.

This being said, I totally agree that the mistake was that of the owner of the dog. His dog was supposed to be ON LEASH, and UNDER CONTROL, and for that, I feel little pity for him. It’s sad for the dog who, likely, was just being a dog. The owner put his animal at risk, and that’s a shame.

As a side note on the circling/barking behavior: I have an Australian Shepherd who has such strong prey/herding drive that she, too, circles around people at the park and barks her head off (usually so we’ll, quote “Throw the goddamned ball now now now now now now now now now nowwwwwww!” :D) It gets obnoxious. But that’s what she’s bred to do.

I’m not sure how I would react if a strange dog came running up to me and my (hypothetical) children. My reflex would probably be to tell the kids to stand still and get them out of the “line of fire” and evaluate the situation from there. But then, I’m a dog trainer, so my reading of canine body language is pretty good…

I can’t blame the dad for reacting the way he did. I am, however, reluctant to say that since the dog was loose and running towards him and the kids, it was immediately a threat. I also wonder if he would have shot a cute little terrier if it had done the same thing… I trust little dogs least of all.

34

That’s the thing Elenfair.

That dog was probably herding the children. It definitely appears to be threatening behavior and as you and I (who has a border collie) know, there was a snowball’s chance in hell that dog was going to bite a kid.

So, there’s no way for the cop to know that and he feared for his children’s protection.

But, read a different way: his ignorance of the threat posed by that dog – NOT his understanding of the threat posed by that dog – and the fact that he had a gun turned what would have been a scary, upsetting, episode into a scary, upsetting, episode with a dead dog at the end.

35

I hadn’t quite looked at it that way, and you are right in many respects.

I mean, my toller likes to HOWL at people. Not bark, HOWL when they come into the offleash park. It’s his way of saying “Newcomers! There are newcomers!” and he usually puts a sock in it a few seconds later. It’s also how he alerted when he was active in Search and Rescue - to let us know someone was found.

This is why I don’t let my guys off leash unless they’re in an offleash area. Zap’s too likely to find something/someone to chase and herd, and Duff is too likely to find someone and let me know he’s found them (he DOES sound menacing when he howls)…

Offleash parks, though, it’s fair game. :wink:

I’m seriously thinking that in this case, the kids are going to be far more traumatised by dad’s overreaction than the “potential dog attack” they were facing.

:frowning: Sad all around, really. More education is needed: for dog owners AND non-dog owners AND kids, alike.

36

Amen sistah! You ever notice how the little yippers are the ones that cause the most problems at the leashless parks? They think they’re ten feet tall!

37

A comment on this sentence - you seem to be implying that his lack of knowledge about dog behavior is somehow a deficiency. If he was in a park where dogs were allowed offleash, I’d agree. But he wasn’t - and therefore IMHO it wasn’t his responsibility to know what kind of dog behavior are actually threatening, and which are not, even if they appear so. Especially given Elenfair’s post above that different breeds have different threatening behavior - can you really expect a non-dog owner to learn the behaviors of all types of dogs?

Dogs definitely have the capability to do serious harm to children, and can be very unpredictable. My wife’s family had a goofy, friendly dog that unexpectly bit a 6 year old girl on the face when she startled it. Before it happened everyone would have agreed it was the friendliest dog in the world who would never bite anyone. Afterwards they had to put it to sleep. I’d never trust an unknown dog around my kids.

38

If you’re taking your kids (and a loaded gun) to a place that regularly has dogs running off-leash, I think it would be wise to try to understand dog behavior pretty well.

In my city, people do get mauled by dogs from time to time. You know where it happens? in the alleys behind peoples houses when a dog gets out of the yard. Or a stray dog wandering the streets.

It doesn’t happen in leash-free (illegally) dog parks.

And that doesn’t mean that a dog is justified in running up to a person and barking but it doesn’t mean that someone who shoots a dog who does so without understanding the “dynamic” of the park is really justified either.

39

We don’t know from the article if it was a “leash-free” park or if the owner had just let it off the leash. Trunk, you seem to be utterly convinced there was absolutely no way this dog was actually going to bite one of the children. How can you know that? From the description of the dog in the article “snarling, barking, and lunging”, I think most reasonable people would think there was at least a possibility the dog was going to bite. Was shooting the dog the only or best solution? Probably not. Was it justified under the circumstances? I think so.

As to why he was armed - I couldn’t find anything about off-duty police being required to go armed, but this post from Badge in his “Ask the cop” thread implies that he is usually armed when off-duty - “you probably have a gun and cuffs,”:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2668385&postcount=107

40

There’s another article on the Union Leader’s website about this event. You may have to register to view it, but all they want is your age and ZIP Code; e-mail addresses are optional.
http://www.theunionleader.com/Articles_show.html?article=35407&archive=1

The article has this to say about off-duty cops carrying their service pistols:

It also amplifies the dog’s behavior a little bit: