I know this is slightly off-topic, but since I've got a dog trainer here, I thought I might ask a question that has been on my mind lately.

A couple of weeks ago I prepared a class on fighting breeds - Rottweilers, Staffordshire Bull Terriers, etc - because recently in the Czech Republic a law was proposed that would ban them. This eventually died due to massive protests, but it did generate a lot of discussion. On the net I found an interesting debate between those who aver that there were 'no bad dogs, just bad owners' and those who state that, on the contrary, there are certain breeds that are genetically programmed to be highly aggressive.

This debate is pretty heated and there are even accusations of 'dog racism'. For example, the 1997 edition of the American Kennel Club's Complete Dog Book was recalled for perpetuating breed stereotypes (There's an informative article here at www.planet-pets.com/racism.htm )

The Czech Republic is extremely dog-oriented and most of my students are owners. They were pretty much equally divided between the two camps and as I have personally owned only good-natured mutts, I don't know what to think at all. What do you think?

I think CD is unfortunately hitting on the nerve that I wished to expose, that dogs have been trained to react aggressively to people of different races, I didn't even want to bring it up because it is something that disgusts me, but how many times have even I heard in America, "He just barks at black people"? I wish I hadn't, I certainly didn't wish to as I find this sort of thing repugnant.
If a dog reacts to everyone in uniforms, my dog used to hate my band uniform for example until he recognized me, because we resemble postal carriers or people who come and ring the doorbell, then they certainly are going to react to things like different appearance or even race.
And if the police force that employs the dogs is unsympathetic to African-Americans, those dogs will be more sensitive to them.
If a Klu Klux Klan grand master trains his dogs, I don't care what breed the dogs are, I'm sure he's not going to make sure the dog treats people equally well.

Dolpho seems like a different case to me. He seems more like a dog who was trained to a specific task, who should not be overreacting to anyone no matter what their race is.
It seems like he is like a police officer involved in a shooting and it's not easier to determine whether it was intentional or if it was part of his duties, so he should not be employed as a police officer anymore. If he were a human, then a court case would either clear him or suspend him.

I rather doubt the police dept. would have "sicked" the dog on the kid either. I mean it doesn't sound plausible.

I must admit that I still maintain that some races of dogs are so unstable that they should probably not be kept by people who aren't trained to raise them properly. You can tell me until you're blue in the face that Pitbulls are the nicest dogs in the world, but the people who tend to raise them, choose them for a reason.

Just yesterday we had another case in France of two dogs severely mauling an infant, a Rottweiler and a Pitbull, when the 18-year old mother left the terrace door open a few minutes. They just picked the kid up and..well no details necessary, they don't know if the kid will live.
My son came running in to tell me about it, totally shocked.
When French authorities try to make registration of these animals mandatory or do anything to prevent these dogs from being kept in public housing as most of the accidents occur there, they are treated as if they are racists. Some city authorities have fought these rulings, but to no avail.

For me, these dogs are like lethal weapons and should only be kept by people who are trained. They should not be allowed in public housing that is financed by local or federal authorities.

Dolpho seems like an example of an animal who probably overreacted for some reason, I'm not convinced that it was racist, other situations seem much much clearer.

Has anyone ever had a police dog examine them? I have! The dogs in the airports sniff you for drugs now, and I don't mind, but as I'm someone who is afraid of dogs, I'm always wondering if they could get a "false positive" like on a lie detector.

If a dog who suffers 'rage syndrome' attacks a person, you think it's the dog's fault? How can that be? If dogs weren't inbred by people, they wouldn't have that wrong with them. Inbreeding causes a lot of mental and physical disabilities. It would still be a person's fault for inbreeding them.

Now in Dolpho's case, his partner didn't see what caused Dolpho to attack because he was arresting a drug suspect. As I have said, we only have the kid's and other's say so.

CD, I answered that question about dogs randomly attacking. I answered it before you asked it, by posting the 10 reasons as to why a dog will attack.

Also, I didn't mean to make you think that I would condone my female Collie attacking just anyone, I meant if a person was antagonizing her now, considering what happened to her, she would have every reason to defend herself and she shouldn't be held accountable for it. But of course I know she would.

Also, in the case of my dog, Dakota, he was on his own property and the girl kept coming over and then she deliberatly stomped on his foot. If he did what you said he could have done, sorry, but it wouldn't have been his fault. It would have been her fault, her mother's fault, and her grandmother's fault for not teaching the child discipline. Also, forgot to mention, my dog was leashed to the railing when that happened.

I don't condone randomly attacking by dogs, but I do know that a dog must have had a reason to attack. This is my point.

There comes a time where it doesn't matter why a dog attacked, but what to do after it's happened and it's too late.
Doesn't matter that the two dogs had a reason to attack that baby, just that you prevent it from ever happening again. And that the case serves to prevent other owners of such dogs from letting it occur, and finally, that perhaps these dogs should be prevented from living in certain places in certain conditions.

How many attacks by these dogs have to occur before people realize they are not compatible in certain situations?
Any dog is normally nervous around babies or small children especially one who is the baby before the child comes. But some breeds overreact.
It's not the dog to blame, sure, but most of the people who buy and raise that particular breed do it for a reason.
Perhaps what I say might be considered to be "dog racism" as Dobrov was bringing up.
But if you simply required more licensing and controls on certain breeds involved in these cases then you'd see the deaths and maulings go down considerably.

Sometimes pointing out "blame" isn't enough, you have to pick up the pieces and learn something from the situation.

Hmmmm...you know, when I first posted this thread, I was just going on my gut reaction to the story. But, I have to say that the thread is turning out to be more educational and informative than I'd thought it would. I'm learning a lot about dogs, behavior, and many other things. You're getting me to think about some things here. Thanks, everyone!

Quick question that I'm curious about from everyone who's posted - should Dolpho be killed for what happened? Several people say that he should be taken out of police service. But, go further and tell whether you think the Councilwoman is correct.

Just wondering about this part of it.

I would imagine that any dog handler who has worked and lived closely with a dog would prefer to give the animal a well earned retirement in the handler's own home.

I know that over here in the UK that option is available in the police force.

However if the dog is proven to be unmanageable and the handler can't cope safely with it in public then that's an entirely different matter.

I agree with izzi, that is well put.

I did a bit of research on this problem. Interesting things popped up. It appears as though the police officer who works with the dog is African-American himself. Anyone confirming this? That would be odd.

The San Francisco case is coming up quite frequently too.

Another interesting bit of info is that now people are claiming their dogs are being racially profiled as insurance companies do not wish to insure them if they have a certain breed of dog!

The worst thing I saw was the South African police force setting their dogs on people trying to enter the country illegally. They were filmed doing it.

I am inclined to agree with izzi that if the court case is proven that the dog repeatedly mauled people, don't care what their race is, then perhaps he should be put down.
He should not be allowed to work as a police dog though.

So, do we know who let the dog out of the K9 wagon and why?

I believe the councilwoman is lying. She claims that she's received numerous complaints from blacks that Dolpho attacked them. If this were truly the case, we would have heard about Dolpho long before this story.

Before she sends Dolpho to his death, the councilwoman better find out who inadvertantly opened the patrol car door. Because it's a safe bet that whoever opened the door [in my opinion it was the kid] is the one who was antagonizing Dolpho.

There has been no mention that Dolpho is uncontrollable. Considering that he never targeted the wrong person before, I believe he targeted the right person this time.

Dolpho should be retired from the force, not executed. After all, he may be a police dog, but he is still a police officer. We don't execute human police officers when they make mistakes.

So to reiterate my opinion, the coucilwoman is lying, the kid who was bitten is lying, the so-called "innocent angels" that are considered witness [who just happened to be on the corner when the bust went down] are lying.

The only two that I believe are the two officers that were present at the time: Officer Brager and Dolpho. Brager couldn't have seen what was happening as to why Dolpho bit the kid. He testified to this, he didn't embelish, he didn't lie. Dolpho is incapable of lying.

This is my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

There have been some very thought-provoking comments made here, so I decided to see if I could find out any more about this incident.
As it turns out, no one opened the car door---the officer was wearing a remote control device on his belt, and it was accidentally triggered. (How, I'm not sure---but the little boy could not have done it.)
The dog did only bite the boy once, in the leg--but he then dragged him about twenty feet. (Who knows? Maybe he too thought 9 year old boys don't belong in the middle of a drug bust!)
Councilwoman Wanda Jones Dixon says she has had six complaints about Dolpho over the past year. Three of those who complained were involved with drugs. The OTHER three were blacks who believe the dog targeted them because they were black. (I couldn't find any info on where, when, and why they and Dolpho came into contact.)
Bottom line---I think there's more to this story, and we don't know enough about what actually DID happen to be judging anyone---not the boy, the policeman, the councilwoman, OR the dog. BUT---the dog is now KNOWN to have attacked the wrong person on at least one occassion, and therefore should be, for everyone's safety (Dolpho included), retired from police work. He's been working for three years---in dogs years, he's got in his twenty, retire him at full pay and let him get a job as a night watchman.

I just wanted to thank Ms. Batt for taking the trouble to find out more about the incident: Thanks! Do you happen to have a link you could share with us?

I'm glad you did that extra work too. I tried earlier on in the case and it was not yet available.
I just have to say this though, I don't think any nine year old child on the face of the earth is going to be foolhardy enough to open the door of a police car with a canine cop inside it. Especially in a drug bust or situation where the dog was alerted to something going on and stuck in that car wanting to get out.
No child with any street smarts is going to open somebody's car when a big dog is inside it much less the cops.
Especially not a kid in a neighborhood where the police dogs are perceived as threatening. I came up with all sorts of documents on charges of police taking dogs into neighborhoods and protests, so it's a commonplace event. No child that age is going to be that dense to open the car door and let that dog out.
A kid might taunt a dog on the other side of a fence sure, but at that age, the kid has to know the dog cannot escape.
Even an aggressive child is not going to open the police car door either, dog or no dog.

I know kids more than I do dogs, there are some bad apples that would mistreat dogs deliberately but only in a cowardly way.
MsBatt that was good detective work. I'd like to see the site too.

I'm not very computer-saavy---I hope this works. In case it doesn't, I found the story at Fox News, thru a Google search for 'Councilwoman Wanda Jones Dixon'.
http://www.foxnews.com/story:/0,2933,55010,00html
If this isn't the right way to do this, somebody tell me how and I'll try again.

When you are creating a post, under where you type your message is a column that says Instant UBB Code, under that is an icon that says URL, click that.

A window will pop up and in there type the address of the site you are referring to, click okay, and then write a title like, Link or Story.

When you post your post, on the bottom the title of your link will be there and when someone clicks on it, they will be directed to that site.

Okay, let me try that. Story

That did not not work.

I think this is the one you were talking about.

This is a transcript from a show the councilwoman was on.

Okay, let me try this one more time, lol! story

In reply to:

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If Dixon doesn't know exactly what happened, then how can she say what didn't happen.

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Isn't that precisely what you were doing when you 'voiced' these opinions?

In reply to:

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... the councilwoman is lying, the kid who was bitten is lying, the so-called "innocent angels" that are considered witnesses (who just happened to be on the corner when the bust went down) are lying.

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I sincerely hope that you never get called up for jury service if you are prepared to make such a judgement without any shred of evidence whatsoever!

And, just for the record, dogs can and do see in color (although they are red-green colorblind.)