Since I always like to leave things on an up note I have a funny story out of Australia.

I’ve heard of the dog eating your homework but never a car.

A DARWIN man woke yesterday to discover dogs had eaten his car.

And he says it’s not the first time it has happened.

Clayton Dwyer, 47, of Millner, thought his girlfriend was kidding when she woke him up and told him his work ute had been gnawed by a pack of savage dogs. But when he walked outside his Beetson Place home he discovered this was no joke.

His front bumper had been ripped from the car and chewed to bits by the dogs. They had even tried to munch on the front panels.

“You can see the teeth marks,” he said.

Asked what he thought when he first saw the damage, Mr Dwyer said: “Doggone it! That’s a bit ruff.”

The landscape gardener said the pack of wild dogs had been lurking around his neighbourhood for months.

“My girlfriend’s car got eaten about three months ago,” he said. “At first we thought it had been attacked with a hammer, but we took it to the panel beaters and he said it was dogs. You could see the teeth marks on it.”

Dwyer wasn’t sure if insurance would cover this.  Hmmm…I gonna have to say no.

In Portland, Oregon a woman was traveling on a bus when her service dog was attacked and killed by a larger dog.

A big dog killed a small dog standing at its owner’s feet on a TriMet bus Sunday afternoon, an agency spokeswoman said Monday.

The smaller animal, a Pomeranian, was a service dog and therefore authorized to travel on the bus. The larger one, a mix between a Rottweiler and a Shar-Pei, was not. Its owner was subsequently barred from riding TriMet buses and trains for 30 days.

I want to thank Dogster member Victoria for bringing this story to my attention.  She contacted me to help get the word out that currently there are no federal laws that make it a crime to kill or injure a service dog.

I am horrified by this story, but hope that it might spur the government to create hefty fines and jail time for injuring or killing a service dog, or allowing your dog to do so. These dogs are our lifelines, and need to be protected.

* The gorgeous girl above is Dogster member Angel Precious, an angel since October 11, 2008.

As I was perusing the news this morning I came upon an update on this case which took place in 2001.  This incident garnered national headlines due to the details of the case.

The case involved Marjorie Knoller, who was accused of doing practically nothing while her dogs fatally mauled a neighbor in their apartment hallway.

The Knoller’s had custody of two Presa Canario dogs, which were owned by inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison.

On the day of the attack, Knoller took the larger dog, Bane, for a walk on the roof of the apartment building and returned to the sixth-floor corridor when the dog bolted away from her and attacked Whipple as she was about to enter her apartment. Bane’s 100-pound mate, Hera, charged out of Knoller’s apartment and may have joined the attack.

The prosecution claimed Knoller had not bothered to put a muzzle on her aggressive 140-pound Presa Canario dog before taking it out of the apartment. She did not call for help, retrieve a weapon or dial 911 while the animal was mauling Diane Whipple for at least 10 minutes.

She later blamed the victim for her own death, denying any culpability.

A jury in Los Angeles, where the trial was moved because of extensive publicity in the Bay Area, convicted Knoller of second-degree murder in 2002 and found Noel guilty of involuntary manslaughter for leaving the dogs with his wife while knowing she couldn’t control them.

The premise of the prosecutor’s case was these dogs were lethal weapons and that Marjorie Knoller is therefore guilty of murder, not involuntary manslaughter.

Judge James Warren of San Francisco Superior Court, who presided over the trial, reduced Knoller’s original murder conviction to involuntary manslaughter, saying he believed her when she said she had no idea Bane might kill someone.

The state Supreme Court ruled last year that Warren had used the wrong legal standard in overturning the murder verdict. The court said prosecutors seeking a murder conviction for dog mauling don’t have to prove the owner knew the dog was likely to kill, only that the owner had been aware the animal was potentially lethal and had exposed others to the danger.

After poring through the trial transcript, Woolard reinstated the murder conviction Aug. 22, saying Knoller had ignored warnings that the dogs were dangerous and had seen them attack and threaten other dogs and people.

This is a very interesting, and sad case, because it was the first time in California there was a murder conviction for a dog mauling.

What do you think about this case? Do you think Knoller is guilty of muder or involuntary manslaugher?  Should someone be held accountable for the actions of their dogs if they don’t know beforehand what is going to happen?  Give me a bark and let me know what you think.

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.