Everyone loves dogs, right? Apparently not.
One woman recently shared a video of a dog attacking her car and in it, she can be heard asking a police officer to shoot it or throw a rock at it to make it stop. A lot of people have read and shared the post and say the woman is asking the officer to commit animal cruelty. The woman says she was just worried that the dog was going to attack a person or another animal. Did the police officer make the right call?
The Dalton Police department received a call from Jessica Dilallo on Nov. 9.
She was requesting help with a dangerous dog that was attacking her vehicle. The dog was pulling on the bumper, growling, extremely angry and even bleeding, according to Dilallo. She made a video of the attack and her interaction with the police officer who responded.
In the video, a pitbull can be seen pulling on the bumper of the vehicle. It is not paying attention to the people around or acting aggressively toward anyone. In fact, Lt. Matthew Locke, the officer who arrived at the scene first, said that as he pulled up, the dog ran to his window and seemed friendly. When he exited his vehicle, the dog did not behave aggressively and simply turned its focus back to the car.
Locke said that there were two cats hiding inside the car’s engine and the dog was simply trying to get to the cats.
He confirmed that Dilallo did ask for him to shoot the dog or throw a rock at it. He refused because the dog was not attacking or acting aggressively toward anyone, only the car. He also did not want to pull the dog away because he was afraid that this might make it attack him and then he would have to shoot it.
After about 30 minutes, an animal control officer arrived on the scene with a choker leash. He was able to pull the dog off the car and contain it, so it would not attack anyone. The dog was taken to the shelter, where it was later claimed by the owner.
Police say the owner was given a warning to keep the dog under control and agreed to keep it in a fenced yard. The owner also agreed to pay Dilallo’s insurance deductible to help repair the damage to her car.
Dilallo is still not happy about how the situation was handled.
She felt as if the officers did not take it seriously and is worried that the dog could escape the yard again and attack a person or animal the next time. She said that although she has been getting death threats from people who have viewed the video, she does not think she was overreacting.
“I’m like the most hated person right now because I said I wanted to shoot the dog, but I still stand by that. It was foaming at the mouth; there was blood everywhere.”
Just like Dilallo stands by her desire to shoot the dog, Locke stands by his decision to handle the situation differently.
He said that the only reason to shoot a dog is if it is hurting another person or animal, and at that point, it was not doing so. While the dog destroying the vehicle is frustrating for Dilallo, it was no reason to kill the dog.
It seems like most people side with Locke on this one. Nobody wants to see a dog hurt if it isn’t hurting anyone or anything else. Hopefully, the pup can get some obedience lessons and stay in its fenced-in yard and out of trouble.
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