Take a Bite out of Crime

Jesse: Sure, this picture is disturbing- so much so that seeing it you instinctively reach out to cover the eyes of the child you never planned to have - and why would you ever suspect that you're being had by one of the oldest tricks in the book? Yes, I'm sorry to be the one to break this but the old gun to the pet's head move is a con, and in 99% of cases the main perpetrator is the dog. He hates your rights and is envious of your amazing hands so he exploits one of his biggest assets - vulnerability - to get back at you. So you consent to a search and the dog whimpers a bit to keep your sympathy roused and you walk off none the wiser that your constitutional rights have just been traded in for the perverse pleasure of some sick pooch with a grudge against your entire species.

Even worse, for most of these dogs this isn't a one-time thing, they get off on this shit and pull it every chance they get, at circuses and kids birthday parties, just generally trying to be as upsetting as possible. Take this guy for example. He learned that little face (its good, clearly a pro) from years on the carnival circuit, trailing from town to town behind those things like some diseased tail, grifting families and young children for small bills with a drifter named Smiling Phil who he would beat mercilessly with a thick-bristled push broom and force to sleep in a cage as a twisted form of undeserved revenge. He's a real tough customer who puts a notch in his collar for every kid that he bites, the kind of dog Scruff Mcgruff would love to get in his hands and shove up against a brick wall. And yeah, it's always tough to see a dog turned so completely into a hardened menance like this but in a case like this maybe we'd all be better off if the trigger was pulled.

Lisa: My goodness.