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Recently, Rocco, a K-9 Officer who works here in Pittsburgh was fatally stabbed by a 21-year-old man with a criminal record and a reported history of mental illness, while police were attempting to serve him with warrants for his arrest. The death sparked an outcry throughout the city. Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger reached out to Rocco’s handler, Officer Phil Lerza, and through his foundation is even providing a new K9 for Officer Lerza. Pittsburgh mayor Bill Peduto ordered flags to be flown at half-staff. Other politicians called for harsher penalties for those who harm police animals.
Personally, I was gutted by the news. You read about something like this and it makes you hug your dog just a little bit tighter. (Oreo was not amused by the extra attention). Even looking at that picture of Rocco makes me sad. I can only imagine the anguish that Officer Lerza is (still) enduring.
The Pittsburgh City Paper asked several prominent animal-rights advocates what they made of the whole ordeal. “If it’s wrong to kill a dog, is it wrong to eat a chicken? Or to put the dog in harm’s way in the first place?”
I thought this bit from Jason Hribal, animal historian, was nutso:
You can say they’re heroic, but what are the [police] dogs getting out of it? If the dog really sacrificed his life, other dogs should be compensated. They [should] have a representative within the union that could take on these issues. There should be some money set aside so [dogs] get retirement.
Also, from bio-ethicist Peter Singer:
We should give the same consideration to the interests of an animal as we would give to similar interests of our own. But I do think that our greater ability to reflect on our lives … makes a difference to our interest in avoiding death. I don’t think a dog has as great an interest in avoiding death as we do.
Nutso. This is just more of the same anthropomorphic bullsh that animal rights activists get into when they stop seeing dogs as dogs. Our supposed ‘greater ability to reflect on our lives’ also makes a difference to our sometimes disinterest in avoiding death. But just as humans will risk their lives for their children, so too will dogs (and other animals). The idea that a dog doesn’t have as great an interest in avoiding death as we do is, to me, absurd.
Furthermore, it is also wrong-headed to say that a police dog should get out of its work the same benefits that humans accrue. No one wants to put dogs in harm’s way more than their handlers but the dogs have a job; they are purpose-bred for that job. Outside of toy breeds, all dogs are, to some extent, purpose-bred. To deny them the ability to do that work (at least in their youth) is a dis-service to the animal. And finally, police dogs do get retirement. They become ‘regular’ household pets. They don’t get thrown out with the trash heap.
Better stated was the opinion of Kenneth Shapiro, president of the board of the Animals and Society Institute:
One can argue that the police dog and the police person have a co-project. They work together, train together. … You [could] accept the dog implicitly agreed to that life, and got the benefits in terms of attention and training. I don’t have a problem with that, provided the animal is treated well. We use dogs because they have skills we don’t have.
I’m OK with [harsher penalties for harming police dogs] because you could argue that both canines and humans have decided to put themselves at risk. In an instance where a dog is sent in where a human wouldn’t be — I disagree with that. We shouldn’t put the animal more at risk than a human being.
By and large, the media response is a way of suggesting animals are valuable. But when it Disneyfies and Bambifies, it undercuts its own argument. We need to present [the dog] as the animal as it is, not the animal we’ve constructed. [T]he chicken we’re eating is also a sophisticated animal.
Read the whole article.
“Disneyfies and Bambifies” is referring to anthropomorphizing the animal. People also sometimes do this with guide dogs for the blind. They see the dog working hard almost 24/7 for a blind person and although they realize the necessity of its work, they pity the dog. Don’t. That dog is working as it was trained. It spends all its waking hours with its owner (unlike most modern pets). It exercises its mental and physical faculties. And I can virtually guarantee that owner loves and appreciates the service the dog provides. There’s a saying in animal training that a tired dog is a happy dog. One of the biggest reasons that dogs act out (especially young dogs) is when they don’t have an outlet for their mental and physical energy. It follows then that guide dogs are most definitely fulfilled and happy doggies.
Some part of me doesn’t like the idea of dogs being put in harm’s way. But I have to remind myself that worse yet would be to deny those K9’s the opportunity to fulfill their training.
