Sad sad news: Dallas News Video of dogs being shot by St, Bernard parrish

[lindisfarne]

sherriff.
http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/photography/2005/katrina_video/straydogs.html
Blast the media: this must stop (and St. Bernard's parrish desperately needs help for rescuing animals, per bestfriends.org website - animals can be turned over to animal rescue organizations in the area or taken to shelters listed at www.vetmet.lsu.edu)
Edited to add:
Hopefully these events are isolated. But a media blast will help keep it that way.

[Minimus]

1. No words

I can find no words to describe how I feel after watching that. What in the hell is going on!!

[derby378]

2. This whole recovery effort has gone to Hell

Thank you for sharing the video with us. I get the feeling some of these guys really regret this facet of their assignment.

[glugglug]

3. If anything turns Texas into a blue state

this will be it.

[A-Possum]

4. Thanks lindi

I was getting frustrated unable to get it out there cause I couldn't start a thread!

I am also sending to the LSU shelter to make sure the state is aware of this.

There is a RUMOR (emphasize RUMOR) that all dogs not rescued by 3 days from yesterday will be shot. This is unconfirmed but of enough concern that it should be checked out, IMO.

[shireen]

5. at least the Nat. Guard are trying to help the pets. n/t

[A-Possum]

6. Note that the officer's only excuse is "it's humane"

because the dogs have no food or water.

[lindisfarne]

10. The Sheriff should be able to provide water. Animal rescue organizations

I am sure could provide food. There are only 2-3 boats out there rescuing; there needs to be more; hundreds of animals are on rooftops, per www.bestfriends.org

[Khaotic]

7. You Won't Like My Opinion

Sorry folks ... I put people before animals.

There are not enough resources to check out each animal.

As time goes by and they don't have food they will resort to instincts and become feral.

They will never be pets again.

Besides that, many will be carrying deseases.

The situation will get worse and worse.

It doesn't make me cheer, but the animals, especially dogs, will have people running for their lives as they look for food.

When I was stationed on Guam with the Navy I was driving along a stretch of road on Andersen AFB. All the sudden a deer staggers out of the woods in front of my vehicle.

The deer was staggering and was sick.

All the sudden some dogs emerged from the woods about 10 feet behind the deer. They looked like any old Fido.

The dogs pleasantly ran up to the deer grabbed it by the throat and took it down. They began to have dinner.

A feral animal that used to be a pet becomes a wild animal. Worse, they grew up as a pet and don't function as well as a wild animal. Wild animals are afraid of people, feral animals that used to be pets are not.

In Guam they call those dogs Boonie Dogs and it's a problem. The woods are actually jungle and there's no real solution other than to hunt them down and kill them.

I've seen people that TRIED to raise boonie dogs from puppies. Even though they were born in the wild and only spent a short amount of time in the wild, it is VERY trying to raise them. They bite and have a lot of issues.

I hear your bleeding hearts now. "You would have a lot of issues too if you were born in the wild."

You would be talking about a person ... not a dog.

Keep things in perspective on this. People need help, animals will have to come second when other resources are being used.

It's hard to get over, but if you have a hard time, keep in mind that women that survived this ordeal that are pregnant are having their babies without evening knowing it. They're sitting there and their bodies are voiding the fetus because it can no longer harbor it due to lack of water and food.

This is bad ... animals must come second and shooting them in many cases is the humane thing to do.

A feral dog, other than looking hungry, many times looks exactly like any fido.

This will get worse ... prepare your heart.

[A-Possum]

8. This kind of blanket judgement is not helpful.

This is not about putting animals before people. Please. These are not a bunch of feral dogs, neither will dogs that were once pets become irreversibly feral in a week. Come on.

The vast number of these dogs are people's pets; simple common sense will tell you that. Doubtless some are feral but generally feral dogs run away from people, they don't tag along in hopes of finding their owner or food from humans.

It's becoming quite clear that the humans in need of rescue have been largely found. There are strong humane society resources and experts on the scene who are asking for extra resources such as boats. The National Guard is clearly trying to help, as you can tell from the video.

As to the humans, they did come first. They're out, if they want to be out. And many thousands of those that left are miserably heartbroken over losing or having to leave their pets (because they were FORCED by FEMA to leave them. FEMA rescuers were told 'not a single dog or cat in the boats.' And of course the buses.) Do you want to add to their heartbreak by telling them all animals left behind will be destroyed? That's not very humane to the humans either.

As to "raising feral puppies" yes, a dog's brain develops in such a way that it must be exposed to humans in the first two months or so of life in order to become tame and bond with humans (or chickens or cats or lambs or whatever it lives with.) This is biological fact, and probably the reason your friends had so much trouble. However it is irrelevant to the issue at hand of people's pets being shot in NO.

[lindisfarne]

9. The authorities have said the search and rescue operations are wrapping up

This isn't about putting animals before humans. The animal rescue people are not the same people doing search and rescue.

(I won't even mention the fact that had Bush gotten federal resources into NO and LA on Tuesday rather than Friday, we would have been at this stage at least 3 days earlier; perhaps even sooner, as things wouldn't have gotten as chaotic as they did).

[Cats Against Frist]

11. I'm not in the "teary-eyed" over Fido camp, but this terrible

As the other posters have stated, search and rescue has largely turned into "recovery." There are other organizations that are there to help save the animals.

I generally agree with you, and often demand ideological purity from bleeding-heart animal lovers, i.e. they must not only be vegan, but refuse all medical treatement, etc., before I'll listen to a lecture about sparing a dog or cat's life -- if there is a good argument to be made for the destruction of the animal. Here, I don't think there is a good argument. At least not yet. Those dogs, as another poster said, aren't going to turn wild, in a week. They have owners who may be able to be located, but had to rush out, in the chaos.

That said, I do think it should be privately funded, and funded by donations. Of course, this would clash with the "everybody out," order, on behalf of the authorites -- so this is a little more complex than shooting dogs.

That said, I think that if an unclaimed dog turns agressive on rescuers or citizens (or is a pit bull who walks on my lawn), that people should feel free to "protect" themselves -- with buckshot, if necessary.