@HeartsAndClubs
A dead dog cannot show you behaviour, therefore evidence may be lost by immediately euthanising. In some cases there is no other option as the dog cannot be handled even by an expert, but in many cases, if we had the facilities, it could be taken and assessed first. why? There’s nothing to be achieved by assessing such a dog. Nobody should be responsible for passing a dog who has killed someone on to another home, any home. If they do so then they are equally culpable if the dog goes on to attack someone else.
The dog needs to be euthanised. We don’t need to know why it did what it did. It’s a dog. It’s not some kind of human being who needs to be psychologically assessed.
Most of us agree that a murderer should spend the rest of their life behind bars. But in the case of a murderer, they know why that is. They know what the’ W done. But a dog lives in the here and now. You can’t tell it tomorrow why it’s being punished, it moves on from what it did within seconds. As such you can’t imprison it, and you shouldn’t rehome it, so the only option is to euthanise it.
This particular dog wasn’t even euthanised it was shot. That’s how aggressive it was. We don’t need to see its behaviour after that.
You are incorrect and if you'd like to take it up with the people who do this sort of thing regularly, speak to Jim Crosbie or Kendal Shepherd. Jim in particular could tell you some heartbreaking cases where dogs were set up to bite or blamed for attacks that in fact were covers for child neglect or abuse!
In the US there are repeated examples of live dogs being assessed, at suitable kennelling facilities (no one, NO ONE is talking about taking dogs who have even potentially killed someone, and putting them into peoples homes. I really do not know where you invented that from!), that have provided vital evidence.
In some cases, that behavioural and physical evidence proved they were not the dog (and in a few instances, not even the species!) that killed the person.
Some of those dogs went on to be euthanised, some went on to be rehomed as they had in fact done nothing wrong and a few remained at a shelter designed to permanently house difficult dogs (I don't particularly agree with doing that, I think they'd be better off euthanised too.)
Of course it isn't always possible, sometimes there is no choice but to shoot the dog, however as we do not have such holding facilities in the UK, we have no real option BUT to shoot or euth quickly in almost all cases. That needs to change.
It may be in this case that no one could have safely contained that dog and removed it to a suitable assessment facility, but whilst we do not have access to many folk trained to do so, whilst the polices dog handling work remains in house and they are reluctant to seek outside education (meaning most of their handlers and DLO's are wholly unqualified to do this work) and whilst we don't have the facilities, that will remain a common occurrance.
The more we learn, the more we can understand, the better we can educate, the more we can avoid these events or, accurately hold to account those genuinely to blame for them.
I absolutely hate the idea that there are people out there who were killed by someone else, or neglected/abused by someone, whose deaths have been covered up by alleged, faked, dog attack. It has happened multiple times in the US. I don't see why it wouldn't have happened here, humans are awful on a global scale after all!