Who’s to say they aren’t? The fact is that very few follow up articles are written about these instances. And technically, if the officer feels threatened by the dog they are allowed to shoot in the majority of departments. Plus, there are other non-official ways to punish officers who do stupid things like this and bring a bad light on their department. The unfortunate thing, though, is that deprartment guidelines view dogs as property, nothing more.
I would wager there is no punishment for officers shooting dogs in most cases. Otherwise the officer wouldn’t have shot the dog. Who could seriously argue this dog represented a threat to the officer?
Its one thing if the dog is truly menacing and capable of hurting the officer. In far too many cases the shooting was done without regard for the animal or people around at the time.