"A 10-month-old sniffer dog in training was shot dead by police after he escaped his handlers and grounded flights at Auckland airport, New Zealand.
The dog, named Grizz, ran onto the runway at around 4:30 a.m. local time and evaded capture for three hours. Some 16 flights were grounded and caused several delays.
The Aviation Security Service (Avsec) told Radio NZ that the dog, who was six months away from graduating as an explosives detector dog, fled his handler when he was trying to load him into a wagon.
After three hours of trying to retrieve the dog in the dark — airport staff used toys, dogs, food, and handlers tried to coax the dog back to safety — police were told to shoot it.
"This is not an outcome anyone wanted, and police were only asked to be involved as a last resort," Inspector Tracy Phillips said.
Avsec said it would review the incident to understand what spooked the dog. The organisation has reportedly not said why a tranquillizer was not used.
Police and the dog's handler are "absolutely devastated," a source told the New Zealand Herald.
People on social media have been reacting with outrage to the shooting of the dog. National animal rights organisation Safe said it was "appalled about the needless killing of this dog," spokesman Hans Kriek said.
"A tranquillizer gun should have been used after efforts to catch the dog failed. If such a gun was not available — which it should — then they could have borrowed one from Auckland Zoo or elsewhere.
"We hope that lessons will be learned from this and that better systems will be put in place to avoid such unnecessary killing in the future.""
In my opinion the people responsible for this dog death must be made responsible and pay for what they did. This is unacceptable and if we want to make a better world we should start doing something, so things like these do not happen again.
