Quote Originally Posted by Kitsune06 View Post
Wait a ****ing minute. I want to know how the dog was declared 'dangerous' and what exactly constitutes 'dangerous'. Just because those dumb***es didn't have a fence or even a cable-tie for their dog, does not mean that his running out into the road to chase something (which is a dog's nature, like it or not) constitutes a 'dangerous' dog.

And oh, yay! The dog was put down. We're all safe. Gosh, I'm so effing happy for everyone concerned. What a bunch of effing hypocrites. Every time I mourn with a woman posting here about how another one of our fur babies has crossed the rainbow bridge, I feel for them and with them, knowing what it's like to lose a pet... but I can not rejoice with you in this 'justice'.

For what it's worth, I lost a dog, was euthanized 'for the greater good' You want to know why? My sister was a little kid, and invited her friend and her friend's mom and little brother in. "Dude" my mom's elderly and arthritic Samoyed was sound asleep in front of the door. Kim, my sis, steps over the dog. Her friend steps over the dog. The little brother stops and hesitates in front of him, because the little bro is too short to so easily step over him. Mom isn't looking and gives the kid a push. Kid steps on Dude's arthritic back leg. Dude wakes up startled and snaps at the kid. 2 stitches in his face. Dude tucks tail and sits in the corner, quietly, knowing he'd done wrong. Mom says it's ok, knew she'd at least partially been to blame. None of us knew they were coming in, or the dog would have been woken up and moved to another room. You just don't do that to an old, half blind dog. Well, they reported the bite to the police, our home-owner's insurance would've skyrocketed (or so I heard from my mom, I was young and didn't understand all the details) long story short, we had to put Dude down because he was "dangerous" though he'd never bitten anyone before, well into his old age, and wouldn't have then, except out of his fright and pain. I had my head on his side and held him, listening to those slow last breaths.

So no, I just don't feel good about this... and I can't feel good about irresponsible dog owners, either. I send my best wishes to the family who just lost their furbaby, because no one knew him/her the way they knew him/her.
I would have to agree. The problem in this situation wasn't that the dog was "dangerous", it was that the owners were irresponsible by allowing it to roam unsupervised. From the description of the incident, there is no indication that the dog was acting aggressively/trying to bite anyone. It is instinctive for a dog to chase something that is moving, which can (and did, in this case) create problems if that "something" is a cyclist who can end up crashing as a result. That's why people need to have their dogs under control, to prevent incidents like this as well as for the dog's own safety (running out into the road to chase bikes, cars etc. is a great way for them to get run over). As for the situation you describe with Dude snapping at the kid who stepped on him, that's a shame. That wasn't an aggressive dog, just one reacting as could be expected given what happened (kinda like if somebody jumped on you while you were sleeping you'd probably shove them off, elbow them etc. automatically). It's obviously unfortunate that the kid got bitten, and that's never a good situation, but personally I would consider something like that an "accident", for lack of a better term.