Risk Mitigation via destruction

 Dog lovers always deflect.   When a dog mauls or kills, they say "don't blame the dog" because the dog is a not a moral agent (moral agency requires a certain level of intelligence that dogs lack).  They say this because they do NOT want the dog put down under any circumstances.  Should dogs that maul and kill be summarily put down?  Unqualified YES!

But, didn't I just say the dog can't really be held accountable for what it did?  Indeed, it isn't:  Summary destruction of all dogs that maul and kill is strictly an exercise in risk mitigation.   It has nothing to do with accountability. 

As an allegory, lets consider an event that occurred outside of the Animal Uncontrol universe.

June, 2021:   The Champlain Condo tower in Surfside Florida partially collapsed.  The building was roughly "L" shaped, and the arm of the "L" perpendicular to the beach went down.  The incident is still being investigated, and the apparent cause is a variety of factors.

Champlain Towers immediately after the collapse: 

What is interesting to us in the above case is, soon after the initial collapse, authorities ordered the demolition (destruction) of the still-standing portion of the building.   Why would they do that?   Similar to a dog, a building is not a moral agent - it doesn't know what its doing.    Were these authorities thinking "We will hold that building responsible!  We will show it a thing or two!!!   Let this set an example for the rest of those buildings!"  No, that is not why they brought it down.

The remaining portion of the Champlain Towers structure was demolished strictly as a risk mitigation measure.  The remaining structure was clearly unstable and unsafe and was brought down before it could cause any more problems.   What problems?  Well, while not 100% sure it would collapse on its own, there would be no way to be sure when it would collapse or in what way:  It could collapse into a neighboring building or into the street, for example.  Furthermore, such things create an "attractive nuisance" whereby homeless people would try to squat in it and teenagers would force entry in search of a good place to party.

So, the remaining portion of the Champlain Towers was brought down in an orderly and controlled manner to mitigate the risk it posed.

So, with that said, any dog that fails its real-world temperament test (the only test that means squat) must be summarily put down as a risk mitigation measure.  It has nothing to do with holding the dog accountable (though you can believe that if you want to, whatever).

Lets stop enabling "dangerous dog laundering".   No more get out of jail free cards, Fido.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!