It's summer time down here and over the last week we've had a spate of incidents where kids have strayed into the path of dangerous dogs and been viciously attacked. It's renewed calls for dangerous breeds to be outlawed etc. So when Russell Mendoza's little dog was killed he decided it must have been his wierdo neighbour who owns 39 dogs and lives in a truck. Time to take the law into his own hands... so he and a mate grabbed some guns and forced the neighbour to sign a letter giving them permission to gun down the dogs as they roamed the property. Funnily enough, the people who were outraged at the dangerous dog attacks didn't much like the dangerous dudes with guns either. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10622729
Say what? What do they mean whether it should be investigated when 33 dogs where massacred and the owners was threaten and forced to sign a paper out of his will, if they let this people go without charging them, there could be a next one and who knows what that might be. The idea that a couple of guys with guns and force someone to do something out of their will is itself a crime. I'm no lawyer but.. Animal cruelty x33 Unlawful of entry Kidnapping Threatening with a possible to harm Fraud Vigilante
Yeah...So this guy assumes that it was his crazy neighbor that hurt his dog... This is VERY similar to what happened to my grandmother's dog. One day she was walking it, it's a huge mastiff (the Roman lion killing kind), and on a corner there was a guy who lived sort of close to her who has always been a jerk and he was walking his dog, a rottweiler. My grandma's dog knows its strength so when they approached the other dog and owner, the mastiff didn't return the barks the rottweiler was sending. Then, the rottweiler got pissed and due to some magic, managed to escape its owner's leash and attack my grandma's dog. Being the huge mastiff that it was, it didn't pay much heed for a while and dodged the attacks pretty easily, almost like it was playing. Then the rottweiler upped the ante a bit more and started going for the neck and even moving at times towards my grandma. My grandma was freaking out and yelling at this guy to get a hold of his dog again, but he did not care at all, so my grandma started yelling at her dog to fight and stuff. And this is where the fight turned. My grandma's mastiff started WAILING on that poor dog like it was a ragdoll, and NOW the owner of the rottweiler was freaking the hell out demanding that the mastiff be calmed down, but my grandma was laughing and just repeating 'oh no, what's fair is fair." The other dog and owner eventually ran away, the rottweiler pretty injured. THE NEXT MORNING: My grandma's mastiff slept outside that night and was found in the morning with a bunch of stab wounds, dead. Moral of the story: A man with a very small penis will buy a big dog in order to attack others, and will then attack himself if his dog cannot do his dirty work.
It makes me sick to think about it, hope he gets the maximum penalty. I could understand the pain he may have felt over the mauling and death of his dog, but why react by attacking and killing all of those innocent dogs? He didn't know if any of them even killed his dog, it's just so senseless and cruel. On a side note, I just wanted to comment on your mentioning the area is considering outlawing dangerous breeds. Breed bans result in the killing of many innocent dogs as well. Imagine if you had a gentle dog that is a well loved member of the family, who has never shown any aggressiveness, and suddenly it's like the government is knocking on your door, saying the dog must be put to death (or sent to another state) -- just because he happens to be a certain breed. The public (and other dogs) need to be protected against dogs that are vicious, but I just don't believe breed bans are the way to go. I read about an interesting program as an alternative to a breed ban, but I can't remember which country this was in. I hope I get the story right, but it was something like this...What happened is that they were alarmed by the amount of dog bites involving rottweilers. They required all rottweilers to go through a disposition test to be registered, dog owners that had dogs that failed were advised to get their dog neutered/spayed. It resulted in the most gentle dogs being bred, and over time, incidents of rottweiler dog bites were significantly reduced. This is breed discrimination, but at least not a breed ban. The alternative above is far from being perfect. For example, it completely ignores the fact that a dog's aggressiveness is influenced by the environment, it's a fairly high level of government intrusion, no public education, ignores illegal dog fighters, etc. etc... The point is though, there are SO many alternatives -- I can't understand why it seems so common that the choices are "do nothing" or "ban breeds". Sorry for the rant -- it's just when I see the word "breed ban" I feel compelled to say something. This is something that has been heavily debated in the US as well, and my position is that breed bans seem to do more harm than good.
The other problem with the "bans" is that only rarely do the attacks happen with well socialised, registered dogs so the kinds of owners who are going to comply with the ban aren't the problems owners in the first place. While the guy with the 39 dogs was the "victim" in this story, none of his dogs were registered and from the photos they all had a "pig dog" look about them - no shepherd, labrador, spaniel types there. If the authorities weren't able to get him to register his dogs how would they be able to enforce a breed ban if we were to have one? And how many other guys like him are there out there? "Pig dogs" are a non descript mongrel mix of all the staffy/pit bull/working dog types that are hardy and tough in the bush and will chase a wild pig for hours and hang on till the pig is dead. Not the kind of dog you want taking a dislike to your kid.
"The other problem with the "bans" is that only rarely do the attacks happen with well socialised, registered dogs so the kinds of owners who are going to comply with the ban aren't the problems owners in the first place." @SarahK -- I agree, he probably wouldn't be too concerned with breed ban rules and regulations. He seems to be an animal hoarder. If he's living out of a truck, how could he afford veterinary care and nutritional dog food? How could this one man provide the attention all these dogs needed? They multiplied because he never had them spayed or neutered. From the article -- "The animals, all mongrels, were the offspring of a single breeding pair."