Zhou Xuanyao

I can tell you, most people, me included, would find a large, aggressive dog intimidating, especially one trained to attack. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't--irrelevant. If a large aggressive dog chases me, attacks me, or gives me the impression that an attack is imminent, I'd kill it or disable it if possible, and quite clearly I'd lay the blame for both my injuries and the dogs with the owner or handler who put the dog square in harms way. It's no accident, the handler in this case knows full well the serious risks to the dogs welfare but proceeds anyway.

What's good about that? The police again put the dog on the front line exposing it to harm. If the dog had done that to me I'd have at worst killed it to get it off, at best gouged it's eyes out. These dogs intimidate, chase, attack, and then when quite inevitably they get hurt the police blame the person being attacked.

Are you kidding Alyosha? Do you even know what her role is? Perhaps there's a pretty good reason people hate her guts, perhaps she goes around trying to take people's dogs away on the basis of their breed; you bet people are going to give her hell and more power to them. Do we know just what she means by dangerous or over aggressive dogs? I get the impression this is defined by the breed, like the guy she elaborately described who was trying to defend his Pitbulls. Owners of such dogs are uneducated? Yeah, right.

Well I strongly disagree indeed. If the dog had bitten me more credit to it and more fool me. It would have been guarding the property, not only an asset to her owners but exercising an instinct that comes naturally to dogs. We love dogs in this country, so let us accept their natures and take some responsibility for our own actions, not anthropomorphise and claim the dog needs a behaviourist if it bites an intruder.

I did it the other month as I dropped something over my neighbours fence. Called ahead to the dog to try and get its blessing but no sign of it, so I went over, not all that worried as it's only a Staffy shy of 20kg but still.... Had she ripped me a new one whose fault's that?! World's gone mad I tells ya.

Now they got the life!

Not a waste at all, they're a danger to the public, good riddance; I can only hope they'll opt to retire and never come back.

That's the reason they're off the street, concerns for their safety.

As a matter of fact, I'v got a mate that's a cop, don't dislike him at all. I'v known a few others too, the truth is that their private thoughts about some of what goes on when dealing with the public, the tacit code of conduct amounting to corruption that exists internally, and the cowboys effectively beyond reproach can be quite different to what they're conditioned to let on--don't be so naive.

I have a better idea; I'll make use of the police service as I see fit, and I'll demand that they maintain professional standards of integrity, honesty and respect toward the community they're supposed to be protecting. I'm not condemning all police, I'v only addressed the bullies in the footage, the disingenuous spokesman that I paraphrased, and cited the ongoing failures to produce justice for the people from within police and broader government mechanisms where police misconduct is concerned.

Yes a set up, of course. The bloke filmed police, put his dog in the car, and complied with their outrageous arrest in the hope his dog would be shot, and the fellow filming whose footage we have seen is a co-conspirator? The police are the victims, because they were entrapped? You mentioned 'realities' earlier; I'm not sure you are demonstrating a hold of them. So what if he does have a history of clashing with police and or seeking compensation? They're going to try and dig up and say anything they can to come out looking clean. They already said that they permitted one of the public demonstrations, which was conducted without a permit, to proceed because they felt it would help the 'healing process'. A lame attempt to pretend they're the good guys and are the ones holding the cards, when infact they've upped their numbers considerably and erected a barricade around the perimeter of the station knowing full well they aren't the only ones partial to popping off a few rounds. The bear's been poked enough and now they're trying to back out, they wouldn't dare dig themselves in deeper by interfering with those demonstrators. If they wanted to help the healing process perhaps they might condemn the actions of the officers involved, reprimand them, and offer a public apology?

Wrong. Correct. The reality is that they overstepped, threw their weight around trying to be tough guys and flex their authority, shot and tortured a pet, and now there's a revolt against them and they're off the street due to fears that the bullies might become the bullied.

I don't know where you get this, but it was the blokes right to film them, certainly by a libertarian measure, and also by a Californian legal measure. The only thing he obstructed was their precious sensibility, the offence against justice was committed by the police, not the civilian.

I reckon it is correct, but no it doesn't have a great deal to do with the discussion. The relevant point is, they're demonstrating against official corruption and incompetence, because they've had enough and they'd have Buckley's chance of justice from the authorities if they sat around with a servile attitude trusting government mechanisms to come through for them without force.

The only public property the Greeks have damaged, isolated incidents aside, is a means or a result of clashing with police. The bullets in Greece, as in Australia only fly one way so they resort to chipping stones off public buildings to fight back--in the US they fly both ways, and that has been and will continue to be the result of police injustice.

I don't support 'revenge' in itself, or punitive measures for their own sake, I only support them as a means if the end is corrective; I think there's a major difference there and wanted to make that distinction clear.

I support people's militia, whether it be established or ad hoc, with the purpose of demanding their civil rights and keeping the cockroaches honest--everything from the mass demonstrations we have seen in Egypt, Turkey and Greece through micro rebellions as seen here, the purpose is to keep them honest and take justice if the authorities have made it obvious it won't be forthcoming from them.

Nor is it wrong. If old mate were such a great husband and father he may have thought about how the consequences of his injustices might effect them. One can't just go around 'poking the bear', the bear in this case being the public, as they please with no repercussion. People are angry and want justice, they know from a long list of insults that have resulted time after time after police bullying and brutality allegations that they're not likely to get it unless they take it for themselves.

He has every right to film them, and every right to make it as obvious as he wishes that he's doing so. He wasn't interfering with them, they just didn't like it so they came over to throw their weight around. The fact he had a dog with him didn't deter them from being arseholes because they knew that if it interferes they'd just shoot it. This sort of thing only makes things worse for the police, it damages public relations and builds contempt; the public at large is not going to be intimidated as they hope, they are going to be angry. I'll bet there's wide support for them from other police too; they are only hurting themselves; the message is 'we support our own irrespective of the injustice'; 'we serve (what we think is in) our own interests first and foremost, not the publics'.

I don't think that licensing would work, I think it would just amount to more ineffectual bureaucracy, wasted money, and councils endlessly running around after 'unlicensed' dog owners in vain.

Some documentary makers, I don't remember who for certain but I suspect it was Nat Geo, conducted a bit force experiment in which they measured the bite force of an APBT, a Rottweiler, and a Mastiff. The results indicated what one might expect, a correlation between head size and bite force. I think Myth Busters may have run a similar experiment, with similar results. Also it's not necessarily true that APBT's have exceptional game or drive qualities, this is a long way from the reality of today's pet bred dogs in my experience. I think that's often a concession that APBT apologists make to their belligerents in an effort to pacify them a little bit by demonstrating some 'give and take', but it's simply not the case. Great variety exists within the breed, both in terms of form and function. I believe I recall that the weight standard has a 20kg threshold, in that fact alone we can appreciate that there's a big difference between a dog of 14kg and one of 34kg!

That's easily dismissed by labelling the UKC not credible. On what grounds I'm not sure, but on the basis of experience I anticipate such a response

Some of the crap in this thread beggars belief, particularly because it's coming from 'dog' people. Glad to see some voices of reason. Anyone observed dogs in the wild? Can anyone that hasn't draw on their education and good sense to reflect on their nature? These dogs all have a few things in common - they're territorial, opportunistic, intelligent pack animals who will instinctively take down anything they think themselves capable - prey drive. When they pick off a cute little wallaby as it's hopping along in peace in the lovely sunshine minding it's own business, they do it not because they're K9 manifestations of comic book villians, but because that's part of a dogs essence. This essence exists in every domestic breed from Shihtzus through Wolf Hounds. Selective breeding of domestic dogs is like adjusting an old malfunctioning graphic equaliser, output cannot be controlled precisely, and the essence of the system cannot change, but with prudence and persistence the output can trend toward the balance we want within the parameters of the system, sans the omnipresent probability of throwbacks. When particular contemporary breeds have histories in which there occurred amplification of qualities some might not consider desirable, they'd benefit from understanding that, as explained, breeding working dogs successfully requires diligence, you cannot just stop testing and selecting discriminately and reasonably expect to have a full stock of useful dogs in 20 generations time. Some individuals of given non working breeds may or may not demonstrate drives of their working ancestors to the same extent, but it's a long way from a given, and that essence common to most dogs irrespective of breed will always be there.

To a signicant extent the historical working practices of contemporary non working breeds, and of course most specifically non working lines, can mean less than most people might think in evaluating a dogs temperament. Dogs can become unsuitable for working purposes even after a single generation of pet breeding. If breeders aren't on top of it, testing and selecting for temperament then the probability of getting dogs that can fulfil their historical purpose diminishes, so it's not surprising that APBT's bred without temperament as a primary concern can agress toward humans.

I haven't seen them, wouldn't have a clue what breed the dogs are. I saw what appeared to be a red nose pitty in one of the news reports, but I don't know if that was one of the dogs involved or just stock footage used to misrepresent the story - a common practice of our ignoble media.