Blanche?? Have you seen this story??

http://www.lifewithdogs.tv/2012/03/animal-control-officer-sacrifices-job-to-save-dog/

What do you think?

Nope, I haven't seen this till now. What do I think? Well, it's a complicated issue, to me. Not sure I come down strongly on one side or the other.

I think shelters generally don't have good dog assessment skills, but frankly, neither do most AC officers. I see a lot of dogs that have been tagged as aggressive that aren't or are but have very obvious triggers so can be worked with. And I've seen some shelter staff and AC officers think a dog is okay when I don't think it is at all. This is not to slam shelter staff or AC Officers--they have bloody hard jobs, but many aren't terribly skilled at reading dog behaviour--especially when a dog is highly stressed and most likely to lash out. Or in one case, a dog that was highly stressed and did what scares the crap out of me--got really rigid and quiet. Staff thought he was fine, I was totally waiting for him to nail us.

Having said that, I have pretty big concerns about an AC officer leaving the shelter with a dog and not notifying anyone about it (If I read the article correctly).

Bottom line, both sides are right and wrong.