I told you so...

I have mentioned previously on more than one occasion that Halt! dog spray is too weak to have any effect on vicious dogs--it only works on dogs that aren't aggressive, therefore, it's useless. (Why spray a dog that isn't aggressive in the first place?) Now we can see that the heavy-duty stuff which police carry doesn't work either. And I am not surprised. (I'm thinking of changing the subtitle of this blog to "I am not surprised." It fits me so well).

From the Union Recorder of Milledgeville, GA:

The officer used pepper spray to try to subdue the dogs, also unsuccessfully. Vance said the officer was still in danger.

With no effect from the pepper spray, the pit bull latched his teeth onto the officer's thumb. So the officer pulled his gun and shot the dogs, killing them both.

'I think the officer did everything he could before having to use deadly force. You're talking about seconds when all this happened. The officer is now being treated in the emergency room at the Oconee Regional Medical Center. He will undergo rabies shots,' he said.

I will repeat, again: dogs don't get this way unless their owner has done something to them to make them like this--even pit bulls. This is something that is important to me because of my job, in which I encounter hundreds of dogs and have met plenty of friendly pit bulls (not as many as the vicious ones, though, I must admit). First, the living conditions of these dogs should be investigated. Their owner should be investigated, if possible, to determine if he was abusing them or not. This may sound heavy-handed but someone needs to come down on these people who think it's funny to turn their dogs into killing machines. I have heard first-hand from more than one person of how some pit bulls are fed the dog version of steroids and then forced to drag around a tire on a chain, and yes, I have seen such dogs hauling around a tire on a chain while working, and they all looked like the dog equivalent of a body-builder.

If I had been this officer, I wouldn't even have bothered with the spray. As soon as they advanced on me, they would have been dead meat. Since he killed them, they can't be tested for rabies so he will have to get the shots. This is because the rabies virus (or whatever it is) dies off as soon as the body cools, leaving no evidence.