Doggycide Bingo

Police really do have a long, sad history of bad encounters with household pets – and it’s not the cops who usually get the raw end of the deal. Regardless of their intentions, the fact remains that canine (and other) body counts continue to rise at nearly exponential rates all across the U.S. and elsewhere, due to any number of causes ranging from poor training to an increasingly militarized mindset that breeds new ranks of trigger-happy officers. And perhaps the most poignant part of it all is the disturbing predictability inherent to these incidents, as if some grand script were being followed whenever a cop meets a family dog, determining an assured sequence of events that would feel monotonous if not for the tragedy involved.

Yesterday, after commenting on yet another such incidence, I suggested that there ought to be a Doggycide Bingo card, such as already exists for various social elements like atheism, sex workers, etc. Well, I’ve gone ahead and with a bit of tinkering, I give you:

It’s nearly a guarantee that any new report you’ll hear about a dog being put down prematurely by police will contain at least half of these elements; some are so widespread that they may as well be fundamental constants, if not for the fact that none of these should ever occur in the first place.

From now on, all new doggycide cases I blog about will contain a Doggycide Bingo index to see just how it compares with other stories of the genre. After all, anger and derision are always more useful than despair.

Feel free to use and share the Doggycide Bingo card as you wish (though don’t crop out the source address, pretty please?).

Tags: Bingo