I have a question about LE training...

With the popularity of Youtube has come an increase in the efforts to bash LE by posting videos of various types of LE interactions/confrontations. One of their favorite subjects is policepersons shooting dogs that are deemed out of control. While I detest the motives of the producers, it does leave me with one burning question...

What type of instruction, if any, is given in regards to use of force where animals are involved, and, if so, does the training meet the same standards for application of force when dealing with human beings?

That is such a fun problem around my place. We have lots of horses and many not so good owners. So we often have LOOSE horses in the roads.

They still can't figure out that the flashing lights get them to run off.

Once I just manage to get a run away herd of 15ish to line up to go in one of my small paddock, the cop sees the horses and turn on the lights, then give me shit because the horses ran off.

The dude got a very long and nasty intro to horses by the one person on the road with a commercial barn . They always come to us first saying that we lost some horses. I am like yea sure, they would need to get out of where the are suppose to be, the out an other fence and one more fence. What is the horse looking like? No it is not mine.

They just don`t have a clue

I'm thinking that LEOs probably do not get training in rounding up runaway horses. But that's just a guess; I really don't know anything about it.




Sounds like there are very irresponsible owners in your neighborhood. It must be infuriating. They were fortunate that you were around to tend to the herd that they allowed to run off.

"So we often have LOOSE horses in the roads."

Bad situation. The fault lies squarely on the owners, IMHO. It's too bad that LE has to spend the time trying to find out where loose horses belong.

I was an ACO for 5 years and I can say, at least in my area the answer is pretty much no training, The town next to mine had an incident several years back at xmas where an owner had given household dogs (a dobe, and a pit) bones. The dogs got into a fight, owner put her hand in the pits mouth to break up the fight and subsequently lost part of her thumb. Dogs continued fighting, police were called, dogs were confined inside house PD attempted to shoot pit-while AC removed dobe who subsequently died of injuries, after dobe removed police then shot dog, 14 times (dog was running from them never attempted to attack), dog eventually succumbed to bullets in bathtub of house (dog never left house, no other people were in house) I disagreed with the handling of that incident but it didn't occur in my town.

I went on many a "vicious dog" call were guns were drawn on dogs while I caught them, easily 95% of these dogs were easily caught and handled. I did have several police officers tell me they were "afraid" of dogs or had zero experience with dogs and had AC not been available would have, if they felt the dogs were dangerous, ie Pit, rotti or scary looking would have used lethal force. Sometimes if the K-9 officer wasn't tied up he would be dispatched along with me for dangerous dog/dog bite calls because of his dog experience. In the case of livestock, sheep, pigs, horses, I was sent on my own and would get support only if i requested it and along the lines of blocking a road so I could catch whatever was loose or threatening.
I have to say that the officers in my town did not want to hurt or kill an animal unless absolutely neccessary and they deferred to AC to assess the situation, and in the example with the pit in the neighboring town that scenario wouldn't have happened in my town, that dog was in a secure location and should have been left there until he had calmed down and could be removed.
Had some really nice rotties, who were loose and chasing cars, these dogs were people friendly just going after cars and when I got on scene one of the officers who had his gun drawn on the dogs (dogs of course were barking at him and cohort from their yard) say to me "if that dog takes another step I'm going to shoot it" The dogs were frequently loose and knew me so easily caught, and it wasn't that the officer was wanting to hurt these dogs just that he didn't know dogs or their behavior or body language and truly believed these dogs were a public safety threat, and his job is protecting public safety.

I hope this helps, most of the officers I worked with State troopers, local PD, and county sheriffs went out of their way to ensure an animal was caught and confined in a humane way. I hope you don't mind me jumping in to answer from my AC perspective.

I hope this helps,

Quote: "I have to say that the officers in my town did not want to hurt or kill an animal unless absolutely neccessary and they deferred to AC to assess the situation, and in the example with the pit in the neighboring town that scenario wouldn't have happened in my town, that dog was in a secure location and should have been left there until he had calmed down and could be removed. ... Had some really nice rotties, who were loose and chasing cars, these dogs were people friendly just going after cars and when I got on scene one of the officers who had his gun drawn on the dogs (dogs of course were barking at him and cohort from their yard) say to me "if that dog takes another step I'm going to shoot it" The dogs were frequently loose and knew me so easily caught, and it wasn't that the officer was wanting to hurt these dogs just that he didn't know dogs or their behavior or body language and truly believed these dogs were a public safety threat, and his job is protecting public safety. ... I hope this helps, most of the officers I worked with State troopers, local PD, and county sheriffs went out of their way to ensure an animal was caught and confined in a humane way. I hope you don't mind me jumping in to answer from my AC perspective. "




I'm thinking that this is probably the usual case: " ... it wasn't that the officer was wanting to hurt these dogs just that he didn't know dogs or their behavior or body language and truly believed these dogs were a public safety threat, and his job is protecting public safety."


This is all JMO, of course. Like Duane, I strongly suspect the motives of most of the people who make and post those videos.


But maybe LE will see and reply to the O.P.

 Quote: Duane Hull

I have a question about LE training...

With the popularity of Youtube has come an increase in the efforts to bash LE by posting videos of various types of LE interactions/confrontations. One of their favorite subjects is policepersons shooting dogs that are deemed out of control. While I detest the motives of the producers, it does leave me with one burning question...

What type of instruction, if any, is given in regards to use of force where animals are involved, and, if so, does the training meet the same standards for application of force when dealing with human beings?

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

I'm thinking that LEOs probably do not get training in rounding up runaway horses. But that's just a guess; I really don't know anything about it.




Sounds like there are very irresponsible owners in your neighborhood. It must be infuriating. They were fortunate that you were around to tend to the herd that they allowed to run off.

"So we often have LOOSE horses in the roads."

Bad situation. The fault lies squarely on the owners, IMHO. It's too bad that LE has to spend the time trying to find out where loose horses belong.

See we have 1 horse for about every 3 persons in my town, so you got to know about horses a bit. We have dogs and cats laws but horses and catles no laws for them. It is you job to keep them out of your place, yet you have to keep you dog or cat on your property.

Make sense?

 Quote: Duane Hull

I have a question about LE training...


What type of instruction, if any, is given in regards to use of force where animals are involved, and, if so, does the training meet the same standards for application of force when dealing with human beings?

I can't speak for all departments, however we do have a block of instruction on handling loose dogs, recognizing aggressive behavior etc. It's minimal, but it is an attempt. The ease of capturing video today, except in the case of UFO's is remarkable and with few exceptions seems to capture law enforcement at it's worst. Loose dogs are one of those situations where it is percieved law enforcement is alway wrong. For every story that has been told about an LE officer killing someones harmless pet, I can tell one about an officer injured by Fido that "would never harm a flea, he only looks mean". That is to say nothing about a situation that an officer may find him or herself which could be life threatening against a human and still have to contend with a dog that appears aggressive. Like some regular citizens, some officers are afraid of dogs. Shocking I know, but sometimes officers have fears of being bitten and have read or seen it happen to others. I won't even go into to "friendly fire bites" due to deployment of a police dog. In answer to the question of standard for application of force, no it's not the same. Human life is always a higher priority.

DFrost

 Quote: Ariane Gauthier

That is such a fun problem around my place. We have lots of horses and many not so good owners. So we often have LOOSE horses in the roads.

They still can't figure out that the flashing lights get them to run off.


They just don`t have a clue

I can't imagine there are no police officers in your area that own, ride of have some knowledge about horses. At any rate, just another perspective about "flashing lights". Sometimes, the flashing lights are turned on to warn other motorists. Can you imagine someone hitting a horse or cow (which can cause considerable damage including serious injury) with a cop car there and no warning lights to warn others of impending danger.
Yeah, that would be a memo. Then we'd be reading the story about the clueless cop that was too lazy to turn on his emergency lights to warn traffic about danger up ahead.

DFrost

I also don't mean to imply that officers were pulling their weapons without cause, calls came in as "vicious dogs attacking people" or my fave "vicious dog won't let person out of car, house," etc. So the officers were working from the worst case scenario and very often someone would use the word "attack" when the dog just looked at them.

Totally agree on the posting of videos.

Considering the potential liability for LE, and the fact that some of the shootings are questionable, such as in the case of an animal that is restrained, I wish that all training academies could include a module like David described. I think it would be better if there could be standards developed for when and how much force needs to be applied.