Yes. What anectotes? I don’t know of anyone who has had a dog shot by police. Ever. I am just saying just because you read more about a certain type of news story now doesn’t mean it now happens more often. That goes for any number of stories.
They appear on these threads sometimes; simple browsing of the warondogs keyword will turn up several that have impacted freepers. Salamander comes to mind as someone who has personally literally feared for the life of her dog(s?) from police.
(Salamander: I don’t recall if one or multiple dogs was involved in that instance. Don’t sic the disapproving doberman on me if I’m wrong, please!)
However, I can’t recall a single anecdote, even among Freepers, of an incident from more than 10 years ago.
The anecdotes which suggest a recent increase in the problem are certainly present.
Where are the anecdotes which establish this was a problem 20, 30, 40 or 50 years ago?
I did a Google search of stories going back to 1995, one year at a time, with the filters +police +dog +shot +fear for their +safety. I wanted to see stories that used the phrase "feared for their safety" as the excuse used by police who shot dogs.
What I found was that the first police-shoots-pet story was in 2001. this phrase began to be used in 2003, and increased in number as the years progressed, especially in 2007, 2010, and 2011.
Here is a link already encoded with the search terms to see when the excuse of fearing for the life of the officer became more prevalent.
-PJ