General Ohio man sentenced to 19 years for shooting police K9

[Passive Jay]

A dwarf German Shepherd sounds incredible.

I am not 100% he is german but you are right, he is incredible!

 

[Wintermute]

That's almost entirely incorrect. Genetics doesn't guarantee disposition. It's why identical twins don't have identical personalities. Now, do they selectively breed in hopes of creating a great working dog? Yes, but not all dogs actually turn into working dogs as they don't have the predisposition to the work. The most common police dog also isn't the best at pursuing or smelling drugs they show a strong desire to work and please their masters.

When you see 2 dogs being trained and one of them enjoys working where the other does not it becomes almost immediately apparent.

OK.

 

[BeardOfKnowledge]

I did a Citizen's Police Academy a couple of years ago and when they were asked about that they didn't really have much of an answer.

I felt pretty bad for them, they were there to teach us about the K9 division of the force and got ripped to shreds by a couple of women who work at shelters.

Kill or no kill shelters?

 

[silentsinger]

Kill or no kill shelters?

I know one of the women worked at a no kill, not sure about the other though. Would've been some sanctimonious bullshit if it were though, ha.

 

[BeardOfKnowledge]

I know one of the women worked at a no kill, not sure about the other though. Would've been some sanctimonious bullshit if it were though, ha.

I only ask because animal advocacy groups typically believe that animals are better dead than being kept by humans. So it wouldn't surprise me. It's also worth noting that at the department level the handler's wouldn't necessarily be intimately knowledgeable about their dogs from a "Is it moral?" perspective. They aren't animal behaviorists of any sort. They're basically given a piece of equipment and care instructions for said equipment. Often departments will buy the dogs already trained. That's not to say they aren't treated well by their handlers, just that people going to a meet and greet to ambush the K9 handlers with questions of morality would find better info on the matter speaking to someone who studies animal behavior or even a quick Google.

 

[silentsinger]

I only ask because animal advocacy groups typically believe that animals are better dead than being kept by humans. So it wouldn't surprise me. It's also worth noting that at the department level the handler's wouldn't necessarily be intimately knowledgeable about their dogs from a "Is it moral?" perspective. They aren't animal behaviorists of any sort. They're basically given a piece of equipment and care instructions for said equipment. Often departments will buy the dogs already trained. That's not to say they aren't treated well by their handlers, just that people going to a meet and greet to ambush the K9 handlers with questions of morality would find better info on the matter speaking to someone who studies animal behavior or even a quick Google.

In all honestly, I think a lot of the people on the course were curtain twitching busy bodies there to interrogate the law because they didn't have anything better to do. From my perspective, I'd just moved to the country and was interested in finding out more about the law, and well, the neighbourhoods within the city I was living in.

It was a really useful course. I didn't realise that the handlers/cops/whatever took the dogs home with them every night, I thought that was really sweet.

And yeah they mentioned that often they'd get ready trained dogs from other countries, sometimes the dogs didn't even 'speak' English.

 

[BeardOfKnowledge]

I didn't realise that the handlers/cops/whatever took the dogs home with them every night

and most people don't. It's similar to seeing eye dogs where people see them very slowly moving around the mall and think "Man, that must be awful." Not realizing that once their work is done they go home and hang out with their loving family just like any other dog. They even get to spend the whole day with their human which is something most dogs can only ever dream of.