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To be fair, if I'm a passerby and I see a dog with the window cracked open, I have no idea how long he's been there. Calling the cops makes sense, they're the o

To be fair, if I'm a passerby and I see a dog with the window cracked open, I have no idea how long he's been there. Calling the cops makes sense, they're the ones paid to made the judgement call and animal control should have the training to diagnose whether the dog is in distress or not. Whoever made the call chose to err on the side of caution out of humanitarian concern, not to get your goat or ruin your day. Sounds like your police department sucks more so than the worried passerby engaging in "nanny-statism." The police chose not to assess the situation correctly and just went for the easy fine.

mentat 12y ago
So we're not responsible for making judgments and we should now call someone paid to do it? Really?
IanDrake 12y ago
>I have no idea how long he's been there. Calling the cops makes sense... So, everyone is assumed to have no common sense, only you have it and thus become the default enforcer despite, admitting, not knowing the situation?
- mcv 12y ago
  There are people who do terrible things to animals. When you see someone taking good care of an animal, there's no reason to suspect he's one of the few people who do terrible things, but when you see an animal in a situation that looks like it could be something terrible, the situation is a lot different. If you see a lone dog tied to a tree in the forest, it could be that the owner is taking a leak somewhere, but it's also possible the dog was abandoned. Better safe than sorry is not a terrible principle. Same thing with kids in locked cars. Kids do die in locked cars. Not very often, but it happens. When you see a kid in a locked car, it's good to make sure the kid is okay. I'd rather see false alarms treated seriously than see serious situations ignored. And reducing the number of false alarms by not leaving kids in cars also helps people identify the serious situations.

mentat 12y ago

So we're not responsible for making judgments and we should now call someone paid to do it? Really?

IanDrake 12y ago

>I have no idea how long he's been there. Calling the cops makes sense... So, everyone is assumed to have no common sense, only you have it and thus become the default enforcer despite, admitting, not knowing the situation?

mcv 12y ago
There are people who do terrible things to animals. When you see someone taking good care of an animal, there's no reason to suspect he's one of the few people who do terrible things, but when you see an animal in a situation that looks like it could be something terrible, the situation is a lot different. If you see a lone dog tied to a tree in the forest, it could be that the owner is taking a leak somewhere, but it's also possible the dog was abandoned. Better safe than sorry is not a terrible principle. Same thing with kids in locked cars. Kids do die in locked cars. Not very often, but it happens. When you see a kid in a locked car, it's good to make sure the kid is okay. I'd rather see false alarms treated seriously than see serious situations ignored. And reducing the number of false alarms by not leaving kids in cars also helps people identify the serious situations.