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Condemned wolf-dog's sentence commuted to life as prison guard

Rob Beschizza at 9:42 am Wed, May 2, 2012

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An aggressive pet's death sentence was commuted by the sentencing judge to life imprisonment Tuesday: wolf dog Chief will spend the rest of his days guarding Louisiana State Penitentiary in West Feliciana Parish. [The Advocate]

[Judge] Best said shortly after his ruling that he was contacted by Angola Warden Burl Cain, who wanted to take Chief into custody for guard dog service at the state’s 18,000-acre maximum security prison. “When we saw this dog in the paper, we thought it would be a shame to euthanize (it),” Deputy Warden Bruce Dodd said.

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  • Eark_the_Bunny

    Hmmmm, hybrid wolf-dogs.  Do you get better gas mileage from a wolf-dog?

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YQZFGD3Q2J3A2KXHUN6N7CVUNU Zippy

       depends upon what you feed them- mine seems to have plenty of gas at times…

      • Antinous / Moderator

        Don’t feed your dog bread. At least, not unless you have some kind of sophisticated venting system.

  • koko szanel

    aggressive? attacks humans for no reason? sounds like our guards, yep we will take him!

  • grimc

    If there’s any justice in the cosmos, this dog will chomp on a guard’s leg the first time they try to use it on a prisoner.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/RCKHDGD74EFAZVGC3KHWWVQB5U GEORGE FINNEY III

    THIS IS AS GOOD A BREAK THAT THE DOG COULD GET. THANKS

    • GertaLives

      SPEAK UNTO US, O GREAT CAPS LOCK, THAT WE MAY KNOW THE TRUTH.

      • retepslluerb

        http://bash.org/?835030

    • Ipo

       Would have liked.  Too loud. 

      “We keep him inside our air-conditioned home. I feed him oatmeal for breakfast. You think they’re going to feed him that?”  

      I sure hope they don’t. 

    • Andrew Pam

       Someone has Royal Canterlot Voice.

  • http://twitter.com/MadelineAshby Madeline Ashby

    Deputy Warden Dodd has been watching a lot of Game of Thrones. 

  • http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

    Gee what a heartwarming story. After all, who cares about the endangerment of prisoners?

    Edit: some of those prisoners might have smoked marijuana

    • Antinous / Moderator

      It’s not like there’s any history of setting vicious dogs on poor black people in the South.  Maybe the state can save electric bills by having the dog execute condemned prisoners. And save some money by selling tickets.

  • Brainspore

    Win for animal rights, probable loss for prisoner rights. So kind of a wash, I guess.

  • RJ

    The dog’s previous owner said she bought the dog at 5 weeks of age. You’re supposed to wait 8 weeks to adopt puppies. Otherwise you end up with all kinds of psychological problems in the animal.

    She then said she fed the dog oatmeal every morning. Oatmeal to a dog is like Ex-Lax to a human.

    Lastly, she said she got the dog for her son to look after. He didn’t. The dog “escaped” with such regularity that it was taken away.

    Imagine the kind of awful life that dog had, living with those hicks. Living at Angola will be much better. He’ll have proper food, others of his own kind around, plus a team of professional trainers to provide a reliable structure to his world. I’m glad the dog is getting this second chance at life.

    • Justin J. Snelgrove

       In a bit of irony, it’s the second chance that isn’t properly offered to the inmates at most prisons.

    • http://twitter.com/perizade Perizade

       Others of his own kind? Are there other wolf-dogs at the prison already? This poor animal didn’t deserve abuse, but wolf-dogs are extremely dangerous and unpredictable. No way should it be in a highly stressful setting such as a prison.

  • http://openid.aliz.es/hmmmm hmmmm

    Reading the article it seems the dog is going to be housed within a perimeter fence at night, where he gets to run around bite anyone who’s in that area.

    Sounds like a good deal for a dog. Essentially the dog will not interact with prisoners except those escaping.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YQZFGD3Q2J3A2KXHUN6N7CVUNU Zippy

    Wolf dogs are NOT hybrids and the particular one in this story isn’t even a very high percentage animal

    • EvilSpirit

      Ah, I take it you mean not hybrid in that dogs are actually a subspecies of gray wolf in the first place. Had to look it up to figure out what you meant. Shows you how out-of-date my information on that is.

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YQZFGD3Q2J3A2KXHUN6N7CVUNU Zippy

         correct- btw, it’s a common mistake

  • nvlady

    If the dog were half wolf, half Pit Bull, it would have been put down. That’s the irony.

  • http://twitter.com/mkelley mike k

    thanks to the judge for creative sentencing. better to be useful than to take another life