‘Dogs are people too,’ screamed the vacuous placard.

It was held by a protestor at a demonstration outside Scotland Yard after an alarming incident in which officers from the already beleaguered Metropolitan Police shot dead two dogs and tasered their owner. In another country, he might have been shot too.

There is a lot wrong with the Met and they are struggling with a colossal reputation management issue after a series of disasters.

But this was not one of them. This was instead a response to an incident in which two dogs injured a woman, and their owner, apparently, repeatedly refused to comply with police instructions to get them under control.

The incident, in Tower Hamlets in east London, was filmed and posted online sparking mass outrage. The uninformed quickly voiced indignation that two innocent doggos had been killed and soon a million people plus had signed a petition calling for the officers in question to be held criminally accountable.

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There were reports that tens of thousands of pounds had been raised for the owner, Louie Turnbull, and vigils were held across the UK in the memory of the poor fur babies, Millions and Marshall.

Mr Turnbull was arrested, charged and subsequently appeared in court, where he was charged with having dogs dangerously out of control while being disqualified from owning a dog, apparently because of an earlier offence of animal cruelty. He has pleaded not guilty to the first charge, and guilty to the second, and is due in court again next month.

I understand the police action. After officers received a report that the woman had been injured in an incident involving two Staffordshire terriers, how would you expect them to respond?

Officers went to prevent the possibility that the next person the dogs and their owner encountered was a child.

Less than a fortnight after this incident a man was mauled to death by a dog in Greater Manchester. Not all dogs are amiable pooches keen for merely a ball to be lobbed their way and a tummy rub before a bowl of Winalot.

I am old fashioned enough to realise that if you encounter police officers, particularly if they are armed, you do exactly as you are told, and pronto.

Why did Louie Turnbull allegedly not get his dogs under control immediately and save their lives? Why did he reportedly refuse to comply with police instructions to the extent that he required to be tasered?

I don’t know. But I do know that there is an increasingly unhealthy trait among some, possibly because they can’t form meaningful relationships with people, to elevate dogs to the same level.

In my time I’ve seen much less outrage at the killing of humans and how so many can be so triggered by the death of two dangerous dogs when people suffer unnoticed, is desperate.