Police shoot and kill dog at Wendouree home.

With all the news coming from the USA in regards to Police officers using excessive force, I was surprised to see this pop up today. This story hits close to home for me as my Grandparents lived in Wendouree, which is in Ballarat- about an hour’s drive north of Melbourne, Australia.

WENDOUREE residents are outraged today after the shooting of a pet Bull mastiff dog by police at a house in Willow Grove.
Police said two members attended a Wendouree West property at 8.55am this morning to make inquiries in regards to an investigation.
Ballarat North Sergeant Nathan Gardiner said the members went through the front gate and were half way up the Willow Grove driveway when the dog allegedly ran out the front door in a "threatening" manner."

Link

I never thought that this would happen here; I’ve never seen such a thing except for YT videos. What makes it worse is that the police officer stated that the animal was about to ‘attack’ when he decided to shoot, but the bullet entered on the back of the dogs neck.
Although the man does look a little ‘rough’ around the edges (and the police were there for a legitimate reason) and the area he lives in can be quite dodgy; this does not mean that the dog was vicious. I would be distraught if this had happened to my own pet in my own yard. Sad, really.

Very strange, went for his gun before the pepper spray?...Firing a warning shot...? Heads up to the owners before hand...SMH

reply to post by Sounds_of_Silence

Bull mastiff is a very large and scary looking animal.

reply to post by Phage


So are some police
difficult situation for all involved i imagine

You wont find out if a dog is vicious untill it hangs in your throat, and then it's pretty much to late.

Talking from exsperience after being biten 6 times by a family dog some years ago, just for shaking hand with the owner.

Although as stated above a dog can be very protective of a owner. Which I always use caution to make contact with a individual in the company of a large dog. For the most part if the animal was raised half way correctly it was just trying to scare off animals in its territory. Most of the time if they would have stopped and waited for the dog to get there it would have probably stopped once it got to them. I've had many pit bills chase me. And the only one that ever took a bite was when I was moving away from him.
I agree with the individual above. Pepper spray was a option. And it should have been used. It's a dog. Not a silver back gorrilla. Against two officers. Lethal force as a first option wasn't needed.

reply to post by Phage


Yes, large animals but here in Australia they are very common. I have a lot of mates with them as pets and I've never been attacked or felt threatened by one. In saying that I am not living with the animal 24/7 so I accept that at times there would be some trouble.

I just think that they could have used pepper spray or waited for the owner to come out of the house.