Attempted puppycide, or self defense?

A UPS man smashed a german shepherd on the head with what looks like a small baseball bat while delivering a package, and it's caught on tape. The owner wants the UPS guy fired.

I can understand the outrage from the homeowners; that's to be expected. Homeowners always insist that their animals are harmless, and that they've never harmed a soul. This is, of course, taken from the perspective of the animals beloved owner - the same guy or gal who feeds the thing - and not from the perspective of a stranger that wanders onto the property to deliver a package that said homeowner ordered.

I like how the news only interviewed the owner of the dog and some random couple with a shitload of cats who are not surprisingly sympathetic to the dog owner. Weird.

It's almost like your opinion is being made for you.

I often read about all of the puppycide incidents that accompany forced entry raids by police, and I tend to be sympathetic to the homeowner in that particular situation, but that is on entirely different terms. Talk to anyone who delivers mail or food, or anyone who does residential utility work and you will hear at least one story of some "sweet innocent pooch who would never hurt anyone" going on the offensive and trying to take a bite out of his or her ass. I've had it happen to me. And I don't know of any delivery service that allows any sort of weapon carry, of even pepper spray for that matter.

The cat owners cannot understand why the UPS guy even approached the house. Uhh, maybe because that's his job? He also thinks it was unreasonable for the guy to be carrying a club when he probably had a cellphone. We all know that a cell phone will stop a 65lb. running dog in his tracks.

Well, just watch the video for yourself and be your own judge. Me? I would have done the exact same thing: do my job and deliver the mail. If some happy go lucky dog wants to be a hero and chase after me then I would probably bust him across the head too.

Update: See! People always swear that a pet is harmless when it obviously isn't. I believe that it's because people humanize their pets in their mind.

She said she's upset and saddened and just wants to be back home with her two children. She said she knows the 18-foot snake never meant to harm her son.

“She didn't clamp onto him. If she wanted to try to kill him, she would've crushed him, but she didn't,” Melendrez said

I'm not blaming the snake - it's only being a snake and doing what snakes do, but this woman thinks that the python was making a conscious determination to play with a 3 year old kid. It wasn't:

In a jailhouse interview Wednesday afternoon, Melendrez said she and her husband, who is also charged with felony child abuse and neglect, were baby-sitting an 18-foot python when it somehow broke free from its cage and went for their son.

"But. . . but. . . but. . .Eve was only going for my son to see if he wanted to go outside and play some T-ball!! She would never hurt anyone!!"

According to Metro police's arrest report, the 3-year-old suffered several bite marks in addition to being essentially strangled when the snake, named Eve, began to coil itself around the small boy.'

I suppose that Eve was just trying to give the boy a gentle hug.

I don't think it's a felony; the couple owns snakes like this and take measures to keep the kids separated from them. This seems to be a freak accident. Good thing the kid survived.