[casey]

I know of no Department that officially trains to shoot dogs as it would then be concidered a "non exigent circumstance", and be ten years in the policy making / training vicarious liability black hole with a final memorandum ordering all officers to utilize the civilian "dog negotiator" hired at $103,000.00 per year.

Remember the primary objective is to move and clear the property with as much speed and violence of action as necessary, hence the bad guys are the primary threat, with a cooking lab, booby-traps, ... and attack dogs way down on the list. I don't care if you have kryptonite rounds in a rifle or handgun, if your loading a specific round for non-penetration or dog killin' your not my lead in any more. Guys who go in looking for the dog are not focused on the threat that can kill your team. With the exception of NDDs trained dingos I have never even heard of a gun shootin' / knife weilding pup. We took the best, close in, man killing round available via our Department and modified its use to take out a SECONDARY threat. I'm going with TS on this one - use the shotgun, move to clear, shoot danger close as needed the canine threat while continuing to scan for primary threats to your team.

And heres a little story.

Ran into this problem years ago when a certain groups of Dominicans and Jamacians would buy trained Rottweilers (for 5 to 7 thousand) to guard their stash houses. The narcotics guys were scared to death when making their buys for warrants. Since we were operating in a very metro environment we changed up to have the first guy in use 00 buck. Problem was you had to clear, & advance and still pay attention for these "lions" who made very little sound. So the first in usually became the meat and moved to target. We hit one of their bigger houses for our narcotics team - I was lead in when I saw the Rottie heading in from a straight thru kitchen area. The dog was on me in just about three leaps and even though I saw him (or her) it never made a GD sound. Hit it about 18 inches away and took the entire left side of its head off - I mean teeth, eye , ear et al. The dog spun around and sat there attempting to lick its face with what was left of its tongue. Later our Humane Services took the dog to a good vet hospital who put it down. It was then that I learned about these amazing animals and how they were bred by the Romans etc.

Several teams that year hit these same sold attack dogs with 00 buck - all were stopped or killed with one shot. The only people who took a hit were those narc guys/gals who did warrants without us. All were using handguns or short carbines - some with "special ammo". just my .02