President's Dog Bites Reporter-Should we kill him?

While reading some news, I came across a story that caught my eye.

Barney is a very special dog, he is the First Dog, he lives at the White House. Barney, a Scottish Terrier, bit a reporter. Jon Decker, a political reporter for Reuters, asked to pet the dog, bent down to pet him and was bitten. He did the right thing by first asking to pet the dog. Many people fail to ask the owner, who knows about any behavior problems, and can be bitten. Also, sometimes people fail to interpret the body language of the dog. Always ask the owner before petting-they know the dog and you don't. It's actually best to just smile and walk past them.

If you watch the video, you can see that Decker tried to pet Barney on top of his head. This can be seen as aggression by an unsure dog. You can also see the Barney was stressed, his posture was very rigid. Decker also bent down over him which another action that could have been seen as aggression by Barney.

So my question is this. Should we kill him? Should we all gather around the White House and protest until they kill him? Should we now add Scottish Terriers to the BSL legislation going on all over the country? Should we add them to the Dangerous Dog Breeds who are killed every single day even without any aggressive behavior?

This just goes to show that any dog can bite at any time. Any dog who is mistreated or abused can bite. I am not saying that Barney is mistreated; I do not think that is the case. I think this is just an example of a dog who was frightened and bit the hand that he was scared of.

Barney does not deserve to be killed. No dog should be killed for any aggressive action or a perceived aggression simply based on their breed. Dogs can be trained to be open to strangers. Also, it seems that all of the cases that make national news are dogs who were chained for years and bit someone or was trained to fight by unethical people who only see their dogs as ways to make money. This case happened to make the national news because his daddy is the President.


Source: BNET, StopBSL.com