Runaway New Zealand sniffer dog shot at Auckland airport

[Deleted]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39300220

A security sniffer dog that escaped from its lead and grounded flights at Auckland airport has been shot dead by police, triggering fury in New Zealand.

Authorities said the dog, called Grizz, could not be captured after it ran off. The incident grounded 16 flights and caused delays for several hours.

An airport official said the decision to shoot the dog was a last resort.

But it has been met with outrage, with many asking why the dog could not have been tranquilised instead.

Grizz was a 10-month-old trainee sniffer dog at Auckland Airport handled by the government's Aviation Security Service (Avsec).

Avsec spokesman Mike Richards said that around 04:30 local time (15:30 GMT Thursday) Grizz was getting into a dog unit wagon parked in the airport's public landside area, when "something" caused it to escape.

At that point a gate connected to airside, or security area, had been opened to let a truck through. Grizz managed to run through the gate on to the tarmac.

Mr Richards said a "massive effort" was launched to locate the dog in pitch black conditions, and for the first two hours Grizz could not be found.

When it was finally located, "he would not let anyone near him and kept sprinting across runways.

"We tried everything: food, toys, other dogs, but nothing would work," said Mr Richards, adding that the area was "too vast and too open" to erect temporary fencing.

Airport officials finally ordered police to shoot Grizz.

"We exhausted every option available and could not catch it," an Auckland Airport spokesman told the BBC.

When asked why the dog could not be tranquilised, the spokesman said: "I do not have the answer to that. But there were no tranquiliser guns at the airport, and the police do not have them either."

She said tranquilisation would be part of an incident review undertaken by Avsec.

New Zealand animal rights organisation Safe said it was "appalled about the needless killing of this dog".

"A tranquilliser gun should have been used after efforts to catch the dog failed. If such a gun was not available - which it should - then they could have borrowed one from Auckland Zoo or elsewhere," a spokesman was quoted as saying by the New Zealand Herald.

The incident has prompted a deluge of angry comments on the airport's Facebook page.

But Callum Irvine, head of vet services at the New Zealand Veterinary Association, told New Zealand's Stuff website that tranquilising an animal was complex.

"There just isn't ready access to tranquiliser guns and darts in New Zealand, and even if authorities did manage to get their hands on one in time, there are so many other factors to take into consideration, like how close the animal is, the animal's weight, age and how much adrenaline was also running through the body."

He said tranquilising an animal on the loose could be very difficult.
"If it's not done right, a partially sedated animal can become even more distressed, and fearful and difficult to manage - and become even more of a danger to those around it."

Old I know but WTF

[Deathquoi]

Why do people assume that in every situation there are tranquilizer guns readily available?

[zEmini]

Why couldn't the airport just go on with business as usual? The dog would eventually come back and if it gets ran over ... then Darwin says hello.

[Deathquoi]

Why couldn't the airport just go on with business as usual? The dog would eventually come back and if it gets ran over ... then Darwin says hello.

Because if the dog is running loose and gets stuck under a wheel or sucked into an engine it would be very bad, very expensive, and probably much more damaging to everyone involved.

[Activi-T]

Why do people assume that in every situation there are tranquilizer guns readily available?

Auckland zoo is like 20 minutes drive away from the airport (or so the Internet tells me), why couldn't they just get a tranquilliser gun from their?

[Banshee Prince]

Dicks out for Grizz.

[Puupi]

It's a dog. Discipline the handlers and move on with life.

Yeah, it's a dog. It didn't know what it was doing and that there was anything wrong with its' actions. Nor did it hurt anyone.

Unlike the guy in Orly airport. That guy deserved to be shot. The dog didn't. My sympathies are with the dog.

[Deathquoi]

Auckland zoo is like 20 minutes drive away from the airport (or so the Internet tells me), why couldn't they just get a tranquilliser gun from their?

If you'd read the article, even if they did get access to tranquilizers, they might not work. Also, the zoo may not have a ready supply of dog tranquilizer available. Tranq guns and tasers aren't magic objects that incapacitate whatever you shoot them at instantly.

[Puupi]

Dog people are the worst people.

People who don't like dogs are hardly people at all.

[Deleted]

It's a dog. Discipline the handlers and move on with life.

A dog employed by the airport to do good like sniff drugs and bombs....

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Dog people are the worst people.

Personally in my experience people who dislike dogs usually are cunts and shifty, anecdotal but 30 years and yet found the exception

[Puupi]

Personally in my experience people who dislike dogs usually are cunts and shifty, anecdotal but 30 years and yet found the exception

Yeah, same here. Something mentally disturbing about people who dislike animals.

Yeah, totally not the guy advocating we murder someone because a dog was shot.

And who has?

[Deleted]

And...?




Yeah, totally not the guy advocating we murder someone because a dog was shot.

If you're talking about crazy minorities on Twitter then don't assume everybody whi likes dogs is crazy, you should know this

[Dug]

Also why did it need to be killed? If it ran around for X amount of time without harming anyone was it really that much of a threat?

edit: nevermind glossed over it being a trainee dog so it didn't have the training pressed in fully yet.

[Puupi]

What I'm wondering is how that dog even become a sniffer with such disobedience? If it was trained properly the handler should have been able to get it under control with commands. Also why did it need to be killed? If it ran around for X amount of time without harming anyone was it really that much of a threat?

Any animal, that includes human, can just snap.

[Dug]

Any animal, that includes human, can just snap.

I get that but if the dog was not lashing out violently at anyone for the time it was being chased down then seems unnecessary to me to just kill it out of frustration.

[Dug]

It was indeed a younger dog that wasn't fully trained to deal with the distractions an airport can provide. They did everything they could short of shooting the animal to resume normal operations. It wasn't like it got loose and they immediately grabbed the guns.

I get that but doesn't sit well with me to just kill it because its difficult to subdue but suppose you have to think how much money is being wasted for the shenanigans of one dog and weigh those pros and cons. Definitely isn't "outrage" worthy imo but still a shitty outcome that could have been handled a different way.

[Deleted]

A dog employed by the airport to do good like sniff drugs and bombs....

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Personally in my experience people who dislike dogs usually are cunts and shifty, anecdotal but 30 years and yet found the exception

I'm neither a cunt nor shifty and i dont likee dogs they terrify me

[Gib Lover]

Reminds me of one of my favorite headlines
"John Travolta's dogs killed in airport mishap; airline offers credit for loss of Canadian couple's dog"

[zEmini]

Because if the dog is running loose and gets stuck under a wheel or sucked into an engine it would be very bad, very expensive, and probably much more damaging to everyone involved.

Which would never happen, but whatever. I am sure Airports deal with birds all the time.

[A dot Ham]

Because if the dog is running loose and gets stuck under a wheel or sucked into an engine it would be very bad, very expensive, and probably much more damaging to everyone involved.

Sucked into an engine on take off... plane crashes... people die... and then there is outrage as to why more wasn't done to protect human life.

Poor STUPID dog.

I sincerely mean that... poor dog. Still a stupid dog. I love my little pug to death... but man she is dumb as shit most of the time.