How can anyone think that the comfort or life of a dog is more important than the safety and life of a human? Dogs maul and kill people all the time. Especially considering that this particular dog is a Rotweiller and has acted aggressively towards the OP in the past, any moral indignation about shooting or poisoning it, should the neighbors again refuse to act, is infuriating.
Well-meaning advice about the legal consequences is another matter, although it’s an equally sad day when there are laws against the immediate self-defense of shooting the dog as it attacks. The poison idea is, of course, not going to fly in court, but morally might be better than shooting it. The dog’s pain is meaningless compared to the potential of injuring a human with an ill-placed shot, if the OP is not experienced with guns.
This isn’t hunting for sport. The scenario being discussed is another attack by the dog. It’s quite an extreme “animal rights” position to say that, morally, one must give up one’s own life to an unprovoked animal attack.
I think that’s far from settled, even if it is considered settled legally. A dog certainly has some free agency, a will of sorts. It’s will is not merely an extension of its owner’s will, and thus anything the dog does carries intent only from the dog and not the owner necessarily. For certain actions of a dog, the owner might at best be considered to have acted negligently or recklessly, but never to have acted with a higher intent-level that might expose him to criminal liability for crimes requiring a mens rea such as “knowingly” or “purposefully”.
And where was that in the linked thread, exactly? There wasn’t anyone wringing their hands and crying “You can’t shoot the poor puppy.” There were a lot of people making excellent points that discharging a firearm in a public place and killing someone’s dog with no proof that the dog was vicious could land the OP in a lot of trouble. A couple of people objected to using anti-freeze to poison it, apparently just because anti-freeze is a particularly nasty way to kill an animal. No one raised the much more pertinant subject that poison is not a smart move here because the dog you want to kill might not be who ends up eating the poisoned treat. It might be someone’s perfectly innocent cat or, God forbid, someone’s kid.
Bottom line, the neighbors in the linked thread are breaking the law. When someone’s breaking the law, you don’t take care of it yourself, you call the cops.
Well, that depends. If “breaking the law” manifests as “lurching toward you with a knife”, then you might need to take care of the matter yourself before you think about picking up the phone.
It sounds like the dog thing has been going on for awhile, so I don’t think the analogy holds up. The dog hasn’t hurt anyone yet, the police should be phoned now, rather than waiting until it actually does bite someone. If someone threatened me from his own lawn with a knife everyday, I think I would get the police involved before he stepped onto my property and I had to shoot him.
I just found that to be a funny if not ridiculous statement. I, in particular, know a few rottweilers who couldn’t tear apart a pillow because they’re so lazy and fat and NOT TRAINED TO ATTACK. I also know a minimum of, oh, twenty other breeds of dogs that do not ‘attack and maul people’ “ALL THE TIME”.
The OP made it sound like we all have to arm ourselves against the giant Pug n Rotty army that’s beating down our doors demanding liver.
Antifreeze is a very mean way to kill an animal resulting in a very painful death.
Other dogs and cats may eat the antifreeze “dog biscuits” and die. You do not have the right to kill a neighbor’s pet just because it gets on your lawn once.
The guy who suggested the antifreeze dog biscuits said that the man who suggested them to him smiled about killing his neighbor’s dog. Even if the dog did need to be killed for self defense purposes it take a mighty nasty person to derive pleasure from it.
I do not value animal life above human life. I think that the dog should be confined to his back yard even if he was a “nice” dog. I think that the owners should be held responsible and the OP poster should consider all legal means to resolve the problem.
I agree with In Conceivable. I don’t value dog life above human life, but I do value dog life, and I do value basic human decency, and I do value knowing what one’s legal rights are. We should all know that general questions is not the place to advocate committing felonies; poisoning someone’s pet will in many jurisdictions rise to the level of felony animal cruelty, and will almost certainly qualify as misdemeanor destruction of property.
There are legal, humane solutions to this problem. Luring the dog into your yard and shooting it isn’t one of them. Giving the dog an agonizing death through poison definitely isn’t one of them. It takes a fucked-up person to suggest otherwise.
(And for the slow of reading: there are legal, humane solutions to this problem. I’m not suggesting ignoring the problem, and indeed my suggestions stem from years of work alongside an animal control department).
Dogs kill and maul people “all the time?” Then how come everytime I turn on the news I don’t hear about some horrible dog attack (resulting in death or not). What I do hear everytime I turn on the news is how one person was attacked by another (usually resulting in death). More people die at the hands of other people than they do from dog maulings.
Various estimates exist on how many people are attacked by dogs in some way, ranging up to: “Annually in the United States 4.7 million people are bitten by dogs. Of these, approximately 800,000 people require medical attention.” There is a consensus figure of twelve annual deaths from dog attacks.
Certainly this is not as dire a threat as terrorism or lightning strikes or whatnot, but it does happen. I agree that the OP should see if his local government is willign to take action first; if not, he can’t be faulted for protecting himself. Luring the dog into his yard for the purpose of killing it is not what I mean, but if he begins carrying a weapon just in case, hopefully no one will give him any grief should he be forced to use it. I still maintain that, should he be attacked, survive, and find both the owners and police unwilling to step in, it may be more ethical to kill the dog with some low-key method, such as the poison discussed, to avoid hitting someone with a stray bullet.
I think any reasonable person would be in fear of life or limb if an aggressive dog were to approach them. No human being should be forced to wait until the dog drew blood or took off a finger before being legally permitted to defend himself. I would rather risk misdemeanor charges or even felony charges then the possibilty of permanent injury or death because of a viscious dogs.
I have to weigh in on this one. This is a guard dog. It was bread as such. It has instincts which NO ONE CAN PERDICT! Even if your Rotweiler was raised in a non violent context, you can not ever say what or how or when it’s natural instincts will be provoked, one day POW! It will go off, on you, on a neighbor or on another animal. It only takes 5 seconds for one of these dogs to change your life forever. Imagine me and my seven year old daughter going out to the car for school one morning and here comes rover, kid screams, dog gets excited (naturally) and takes a bite out of my daughter’s face! 300 stitches later my daughter survives, dog is destroyed.
Fast forward 10 years, my daughter is crying herself to sleep again because she cant get a date to the prom, her face is terribly disfigured and she looks at me and says “Daddy why didn’t you kill that dog before he had a chance to do this to me!” 5 seconds, lives changed forever over a completely avoidable situation. If I was in the OP’s position, I would have shot that fucking dog after the first time it threatened me. Same with their stupid Iketa. If it chewed up my cat I would have blown it away, taped a note to it saying keep your fucking mutts off my property and thrown its wretched Caracas back over the fence. Authorities be dammed! And yes, I have some “issues”, when I was 6 years old I was attacked by an Iketa, thankfully it is my right lower ankle that still tells the story (32 years later) and not my face.
I hope you’re referring to this thread and not the original one which I started. Are you suggesting that I’m being hysterical when this dog charges at me snarling everytime I go out to get into my car? That I’m being foolish for being concerned that the electric fence no longer keeps it within its own yard? That it’s an utter impossibilty that this dog will ever actually hurt me? That I’m being selfish to feel that I shouldn’t have to be frightened on my own property? That my neighbors aren’t being assholes? Just what EXACTLY is your point?
