Posted on 02/15/2006 12:24:58 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
An explosives sniffing dog died this morning after falling from a ramp at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston.
The dog, Mikey, was part of a U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives unit involved in a security sweep of the convention center in preparation for the NBA All-Star game, said Franceska Perot, spokeswoman for ATF.
Perot said about 1:30 a.m. the unit was taking a break and the dog, a Labrador, was being put into the back of a truck when he suddenly bolted and went over the edge of a ramp.
The dog fell about 55 feet to the ground and was taken to a local veterinary clinic where he died. Perot said the dog, used for detecting explosives, may have seen a pigeon and instinct took over and he jumped at the bird.
"This is a highly trained animal but sometimes you can't train the instinct out of them,'' she said.
Doggie ping?
Sad, sad story.
Very sad about the dog. That said, I highly doubt the instinct in a trained lab would be to jump off a 55 ledge no matter what he was after.
The question needs to be asked.
Was this dog on duty last Saturday at the Armstrong Ranch?
Sad story, too bad he had to go out that way.
WOW....55 feet.......Dog Gone
My dog jumped off a 10 foot high deck going after a squirrel. He was lucky, it just knocked him out.
That is sad. At least he went fast, not like all the poor doggies who are being fed those Greenie veggie treats that are blocking up their esophaguses, intestines, and stomachs.
I have heard of this kind of thing happening before. The local priest had a beautiful Irish Setter. He used to allow the neighborhood kids to take the dog for walks. One day they took him to the park to play --- chasing sticks and such. On the way back they were crossing a bridge over some railroad tracks that had a solid concrete wall about 4 feet high instead of the typical steel railing. One of the kids not thinking took the stick he was carrying and threw it down to the tracks, and I guess I don't have to say what happened next. The poor kids were devastated.
Probably got whiff of the cleaning crew lighting up backstage.
That's the first I've heard about Greenies. What's the scoop? I give them to my lab all the time.
Please be careful. They don't dissolve in the body like, for instance, MilkBones do. They had a long segment on CNN today. It's probably worthy of its own thread as a warning. Many dogs have died from bowel obstructions caused by Greenies. Other smaller dogs have choked to death on them. Others have been saved by expensive surgery.
It's apparently worse than your dog swallowing a sock or a bone.
Our bolted throught a screen to join the children going down the street for a walk. Sadly is was a screen window in an upstairs bedroom dropped out and landed in the driveway.
Broke her leg.
There is a post on it but I saw it on CNN last night, here is the link.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/14/dangerous.dogtreat/
It took almost 12 hours to report this. Time to bring in the Feds for an investigation.
I disagree. I am the proud parent of two male Labradors, ages 8 and 10. Living on a cove off the Severn River in Annapolis, we sometimes get geese wandering into our yard. Labradors are, of course, bred to chase after geese, live or dead.
You could build a 6 foot high brick wall between my Labs and the geese, and I guarantee you that at the first "honk", the older one would jump the wall, and the younger one would go straight through it. That, sir, is instinct.
As someone who loves the breed, though, I am really saddened by the death of this young Lab. The one consolation is that if it really was the "BIRD" alarm that went off in his brain and caused him to jump, he died a happy Lab.
Sad.
Too bad Pitbull owners can't seem to grasp this
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