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He should have kept the dog warm (blanket, space heater, what have you), and waited for a vet. And why the FUCK are there cities in the US that don't have 24-hour animal control with vets on duty?

He should have kept the dog warm (blanket, space heater, what have you), and waited for a vet. And why the FUCK are there cities in the US that don't have 24-hour animal control with vets on duty?

A quick google search of city in question reviled sixteen pest control businesses but no animal shelters

I knowthe nearest Animal Shelter were I live is over twenty miles away, and I'm in the heart of DC

If this place even has any animal control shelters handy is an unknow

January 10, Evening, Pennsylvania, and the stupid bitch wouldn't let her dog in the house? Someone shoot her too.

Metrion Cascade wrote:He should have kept the dog warm (blanket, space heater, what have you), and waited for a vet. And why the FUCK are there cities in the US that don't have 24-hour animal control with vets on duty?

You're joking, right?

15 years old? How old can these schnitzels become anyway?

Metrion Cascade wrote:He should have kept the dog warm (blanket, space heater, what have you), and waited for a vet. And why the FUCK are there cities in the US that don't have 24-hour animal control with vets on duty?

yeah. every rural hick town that can barely afford to have doctors for humans on duty should immediately hire vets. That way we don't have to be distressed by reading about the untimely death of fluffy puppies and kittens.

Col. Crackpot wrote:

Metrion Cascade wrote:He should have kept the dog warm (blanket, space heater, what have you), and waited for a vet. And why the FUCK are there cities in the US that don't have 24-hour animal control with vets on duty?

yeah. every rural hick town that can barely afford to have doctors for humans on duty should immediately hire vets. That way we don't have to be distressed by reading about the untimely death of fluffy puppies and kittens.

I thought in rural areas doctors did vet jobs too

Montcalm wrote:I thought in rural areas doctors did vet jobs too

You got that backwards, but otherwise correct.

Although the schnauzer was not mangled or bleeding, Michalesko says he believed the dog's back or hip was broken.

Michalesko said he prayed and then shot the dog with one round, petting it as it died, ``so it would know there is somebody there with it,'' he said.

What a stupid fucking hick. I work in a funeral home and even I am not that fucking cold. The guy thinks it's dying, so he just takes it upon himself to put it out of its "misery." Fucking asshole. Next time, consult someone who knows what the fuck is going on when it comes to animal medicine. I love how he said a prayer for it. I can only imagine that, "oh lord, please take this doggie to heaven..." Fucking retard. I'm glad he got fired.

Superman wrote:

Although the schnauzer was not mangled or bleeding, Michalesko says he believed the dog's back or hip was broken.

Michalesko said he prayed and then shot the dog with one round, petting it as it died, ``so it would know there is somebody there with it,'' he said.

What a stupid fucking hick. I work in a funeral home and even I am not that fucking cold. The guy thinks it's dying, so he just takes it upon himself to put it out of its "misery." Fucking asshole. Next time, consult someone who knows what the fuck is going on when it comes to animal medicine. I love how he said a prayer for it. I can only imagine that, "oh lord, please take this doggie to heaven..." Fucking retard. I'm glad he got fired.

Read the fucking article you dumbass. He had no options.

Bullshit. For fuck's sake, he could have taken the damn animal back to the police station to wait. Even if his boss didn’t like it, I’m sure he wouldn’t have been fired over it. If he had half a brain, he would have realized that whatever injury it was suffering may not be an automatic death sentence. There are always other options. The article even goes on to say that there was nothing wrong with the dog after all... His simpleton ass just decided to shoot it.

The town acted correctly when they canned his stupid ass.

I fully support the police officer. Sounds like he did the right thing to me. Tried to call the owner, tried knocking on a few houses, asked if there were any nearby animal vets/shelters, and he thought the animal was suffering and dying anyway. He even comforted the dog when he put it down. Sounds like a decent guy to me. I probably would have done the same thing.

While he had no right to kill an animal that wasn't his, it didn't seem like he had any idea of who the dog actually belonged to. With this in mind, it was stupid of the dog's owner to ask for him to get fired just because he shot her dog. He wasn't on duty. It had no connection with his work whatsoever. Why get fired over it? Anyone who owned a gun and was in a similar situation would have likely done the same. The fact that he's a cop should be irrelevant. I find it doubtful they'd be asking him to get fired if he was, say, a factory worker who happened to own a gun and did the exact same thing.

I'm leaning towards the guy putting down the dog as being a little premature but not necessarilly something that was way out of bounds.

I do wonder whether discharging his firearm for that reason is permitted in his jurisdiction?

I certainly think the owner is a bit of a dumb ass but the officer should have done more for the dog or let it be, but in most rural places like that what he did would have been the right thing to do.

I looked up the town on the web and it's pretty small [Population (year 2000): 7,174]. If it's really as rural as it looks I can see why someone might be more inclined to put an injured animal down.

also:

Residents packed the monthly supervisors' meeting a few weeks later, demanding answers. A distraught Meiser stood up and read a statement. ``What gives this officer the right to take another life?'' she asked.

This lady needs to get fucking a clue. I'm leaning pretty strongly towards thinking that this lady isn't originally from this town and that she's only a couple of years from being the town "cat lady".

I'd be upset if it were my dog too but I'd also be likely to take the officer's word that he shot the dog with the intent of aleviating the animal's suffering before it died anyway. The brief statements by the lady give me the impression of someone who would go way overboard in trying to prolong the life of her pet to the point of actually making them suffer more. (I should mention that I chipped in $1000 for surgery costs on my parent's 10 year old dog last year so it's not like I write my pets off easilly.)

``It was 4 degrees out, the dog was pretty much freezing and wasn't able to move, and (Michalesko) just used his best judgment,
<snip>
The incident occurred on Jan. 10, when Whiskers wriggled loose from his chain behind the home Meiser shares with her 84-year-old father.

Okay, what was this dog doing chained in the backyard in 4 degree weather? No wonder it wasn't moving--it was freezing to death!

The dog should have been inside.

The cop probably saved it from a long, agonizing death or an even longer, more agonizing life tied up in the frost and snow outside its idiot owner's house. Sure, he should have tried a little harder to save it, but if there were really no animal hospitals in the area, it probably would have died anyway.

4 degrees is middle of the day temperature here a lot of the time. Hell, when we get past 8 degrees people are out into the gardens trying to get a tan.

Let's go over this step by step, from the officer's point of view.


1. It's a day in January, and he's out on patrol. The temperature is well below freezing.

EDIT: In addition, it's probably after dusk, since the owner was out to dinner when this happened.

2. He gets a call saying that a dog has been struck by a car (note that whoever might have actually struck this dog is getting off scot free).

3. He arrives at the scene to find the dog lying on the ground near the road. He thinks that dog's back or hip is broken, and is probably reluctant to move it for fear of making a possible injury worse.

4. He calls the dispatcher to find the dog's owner. Dead end.

5. He knocks on a few doors around the area, looking for help (or maybe in another attempt to find the owner). Also a dead end.

6. He asks if there are any animal hospitals he can take the dog to. Another dead end.

7. So the probable sum total of his thoughts: he dog isn't moving because (he thinks) it has an injury caused by being struck by a car. He didn't take it back to the car to get it out of the cold because (I'm betting) he didn't want to make its injury worse. He can't find the owner, nobody's anwering the door, and there's no nearby animal hospitals open.

8. He carries out what he thinks is last remaining option: ending the dog's misery in one quick moment instead of letting it freeze or maybe bleed to death internally, even comforting it right up until the last moment.


Christ, if I'd been in his shoes, I'd have done the same thing. It's a gruesome thing to do, but the guy didn't do it out of spite. He did it because he thought it was the humane and necessary thing to do.

Whiskers' owner, Nancy Meiser, thinks otherwise. She points to a necropsy report that showed the dog to be in perfectly good health when Michalesko shot him.

Well, isn't that nice? Unfortunately, the officer in question had neither the time nor the resources to perform such a thorough investigation. And by the way lady, your dog was out in below-freezing weather, probably with snow on the ground, and you couldn't be bothered to let him back in the house for a few hours? Turn yourself in for cruelty to animals.

The officer should have tried harder to find the dog's owner

How? Knock on every fucking door in town and go to every concievable public gathering area?

- or at least taken him to an animal hospital, she said.

He wanted to, you fucking idiot. That's why he called the dispatcher to find one. It was a fucking dead end.

A distraught Meiser stood up and read a statement. ``What gives this officer the right to take another life?'' she asked.

What if he'd let your dog freeze to death while knocking on every fucking door in town? I'll bet you'd be on his back for neglecting the animal, wouldn't you, you stupid fuck?

Fahrenheit or centigrade, Keevan? I've a hunch that the temperatures cited in the article were F, and 4 degrees F is pretty damned cold.

Edi

4C is not a "frigid January evening" in PA. So it would be 4F. Which is fucking cold.