I recently covered a story, Mayor’s Dogs Killed In House Raid, where Mayor Calvo’s house got raided and his beloved black labs were shot. Not only were his dogs innocent but so was the mayor, the raid turned out to be a horrible mistake. Many dogster readers left comments about alternative ways for the police to handle dogs, during a raid or any police situation, and today I came across an article on just that.

In Omaha, NE the Humane Society is working with the police department to help keep its officers safe around dangerous dogs. New police recruits will be taught how to handle dangerous dogs, to keep both officers and dogs safe.

OPD Officer Rich Kyler was attacked by a pit bull while responding to a car accident near 19th and Lothrop streets on June 13.

“These two fingers were completely in the dog’s mouth,” he said, demonstrating. “A large pit bull came out from under a tree and before I could do anything, it jumped and grabbed hold of my hand.”

Kyler broke free, but the pit bull charged him again. He drew his pistol and shot it.

“The last thing you want to do is shoot an animal, but the dog attacked me,” he said.

 That incident was just one of many which led the OPD to come up with a solution to help officers deal with these kinds of dangerous situations. Currently the program is only given to new police recruits, administrators said, but hopefully will expand to include all officers.

The Nebraska Humane Society has already provided aggressive dog training and equipment to Omaha’s emergency response unit.

“We provided a catch pole for the ERU to use and they’ve successfully used it,” said Mark Langan of the Omaha Police Department.

I realize this is just a start, but at least it’s a first step.  I hope this program expands to cover all police departments across the country  and will include all officers, not just new recruits.  An ounce of prevention may be the cure to stop what happened to Mayor Calvo’s beautiful black labs from happening again.