Here is an intersting story I came along today...
Any thoughts..

Guy Barks at Polic Dog

As a Police Dog handler nothing the courts do these days surprises me. Yes the P.D acted in defense of the vehicle, but numb nuts did diliberately provoke the P.D into further conflict, thus taunting or tormenting him as the charge read. This guy was percieved as a threat to the P.D regardles of what the Judge thought. A dog is a dog, and does not understand allot about the reasoning of what should or should not be, or what is and what isn't a threat. Exercising free speech, give me a break. Free speech would indicate that one is speaking... not barking. Lawyers shit me !

Yes, The guy's IQ probably reflects his genetic gene pool is more closely related than is wise. BUT to play devil's advocate for just a minute.
(By the way,this is the wife, not Rich.) The report does say the guy was 30 feet away. For example; we live in a Cul-de-Sac where the kids like to play. We have big windows in the front. We had to teach the dogs that anybody out in the street or on the sidewalk was not a threat. BUT if they come onto my driveway or porch then I want to know about it. Now I'm not really good at judging distance, (what women is), but 30 feet away wouldn't really be taunting distance, would it? If his nose was next to the window, Yeah. Anyway, just wanted to weigh in, even though I do wish they had a law against stupidity.

I ran at a police car once waving my arms to get the officers attention,(someone was getting beaten and chased down by a group of guys on the street), I started at about that thirty foot mark...by 10 ft I had my brakes on. The dog in that car made it clear that I was making myself a threat. He was very impressive. The problem is a lot of idiots will try to elicit that response from the dog. I came out of a quick trip once to find a bunch of HS kids harassing my male GSD just to enjoy his response....they didn't enjoy my response quite as much.

On a similar note (regarding people taunting working dogs) I was in a Petsmart and there was a "training" class being conducted. One lady had waht seemed to be a pretty decent GSD. Some teenage punk who happened to be passing through with his buddies decided it would be funny to stand off and stare at the dog and do things to agitate it. It worked. The dog was getting fired up, the lady didn't know what was wrong with the dog and the trainer was trying to give the dog cookies to calm him down. A couple of minutes later the punk was back at it.

Not being too fool tolerant I picked up a large box containg a feeder and decided to walk up from behind the punk. I "accidentally" about knocked the punk into next week. I gave him a real shot to the back of his head with the box. It wasn't anything that would really harmed him, but it sure as hell hurt. He looked at me like "What the F___"! I said, "You ok? I'm so sorry. If you hadn't been "f---ing" with that dog maybe you would have seen me coming. So sorry" and I walked away.

Athens Ohio is home to Ohio University, a liberal haven infested with idiots. This guys behavior is par for the course in that local. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />