Particularly one segment:

A huge woman in a mumu sicks her (frankly gorgeous) amstaff onto a female animal control officer who was reponding to prior complaints about the same dog. The officer is equipped with a a device (dont know the proper name for it) that amounts to a collar on the end of a stick, so the animal can be controlled from a distance of 3-4 feet. She seems to have that and nothing else as well as no backup whatsoever. Mumu tells Officer to go away and seconds later Amstaff comes flying out of the house, straight at the officer, launches and bites the hand wrist of said officer. She starts screaming, calling for help, and sort of running in a circle. A neighbor hits the amstaff in the head with a 2x4, the dog disengages and then attempts to rebite, with the officer, mumu and amstaff all dashing around one another in a bizarre scramble. I think finally the dog disengages and the AC officer retreats to her vehicle.

Several things about the situation seem odd to me. The AC officer was a small-framed female that looked to be 25-30 years old. Mumu was big, older, had a very muscled, good sized amstaff with a history of aggression. Why would Animal Control send a woman solo into this situation? Why would she not have more equipment, particularly some sort of bite-sleeve, and restraining devices beyond her stick. Lastly, judging from her reaction, she seemed bewildered by the dog's attack, not running, not defending herself, just sort of turning, as in "I have no training for this type of circumstance"!

Anyway, long post, and perhaps rudimentary questions, but can anyone fill me in?

I saw that video.

My preferred plaintiff would have been the animal control officer, against her employer, and the woman with the dog.

She was alone, if I recall. I don't think animal control should go on large dog calls solo. She was afraid, and she had to deal with the situation. It wasn't fair, and a member of the public was also put at risk.

I thought the dog was highly dangerous and that all concerned were out of their league. It was a powerful, highly athletic, and persistent aggressor.

No neighbour should have had to put up with that woman, with that dog.

and again, society needs to learn to pre-empt these situations.

rgds, andrew may LLB/BCL

I also saw that show. I have to say I ended up turning it off even after DVR'ing it. I thought that the whole show amounted to nothing more than a PETA piece about how badly animals are treated in captivity (the elephants) and a subversive message to label pitbulls and other "bully breeds" as dangerous. So from there I stopped and deleted both episodes from the DVR...

For the lady with the AmStaff named "Benjamin": It was too bad that the animal control officer didn't have backup and wasn't armed. I am in no way saying that it would be easy to shoot the dog (especially with a handgun) when it started its charge out the door, but at least she could have defended herself more effectively after it had bitten her.

The big lady's sentence was a joke - 6 months for assult with a deadly weapon. This was after sic'ing her dog on her landlord and his 7 year old daughter. She should have gotten 10 years+.

Hey Chris-

Fully agree that the dog owner got off WAY too lightly. It seems as if a few very stiff penalties (ie-jailtime) would bring the occasions of incidents like this way down.

Must respectfully disagree about the your opinion of the tone re: elephants. All accounts I hear are of elephants being HORRIBLY treated (but that's another post).

Does anyone know the ins & outs of how animal control responds to situations like this? I suppose it's different from department to department, and case to case, but this incident seems like egregious unpreparedness? But I am certainly no expert.

I watched that show myself.

From what i recall, from seeing that whole Benjamine episode on a different show...the young lady was waiting for back up....she was the closest unit they had out that way and she showed up. From what I remember she was waiting for another Animal Control officer (which was why she was just sort of standing around outside the house with a camera crew that was following her around that day) to arrive when the lady let the dog loose on her.
But, the in the episode I saw, they showed the dog had also inflicted damage to her chest.
And that whole Elephant segement, horrible. I was sick at seeing the way some of those animals are treated.
I don't care what anyone says, hit an Elephant with one of those sticks with hooks on the end long enough, its going to hurt them, no matter how "thick" their skin is!!! <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

How about a show called "When decent people turn into blazing idiots."

I saw a show the other night about dolphins attacking people. One segment showed a family who willingly fed and swam with a wild dolphin that later attacked the lady. At the end, the lady is saying she'll never look at dolphins the same, that they're wild animals. She must not have a good grasp of the obvious.

I want to state that I won't disagree that many animals (elephants and other animals especially in the "travelling circus type shows") are mistreated and abused. Can't say the words about those "trainers" on a polite board such as this one...either what they are or what should happen to them. Perhaps we should let those guys go three rounds with Benjamin.

My beef was with the way that the show portrayed all captive animals, had the PETA style elephant training video expose', and they didn't talk a whole lot about the zoo keeper incident where the elephant just seemed to go crazy and wasn't abused or mistreated. So it was the tone that the show took which I didn't like.

I've seen that video, actually at least a couple of years ago or more. They keep showing it every so often. That animal control lady got bit on the chest, the dog latched on and wouldn't let go.
But I have to say, if I were a wild animal and I was caged up, people would be lucky if I didn't attack them. There's much to be said for elephants, who although wild, allow themselves to be "tamed". Many years ago at the San Diego Zoo, I saw elephants chained by their back legs, in an area so small there was no room to move around even if they were not chained, and chained in such a way that the only place to relieve themselves was in their drinking water pond. I think that zoo has changed somewhat, but I still hate zoos.