Cut the K-9 Program? No way? Why Not?

It's always the animals that get the most sympathy.

People go on holiday and leave their pets behind. People leave their dogs in a hot car, windows up, for much too long. Yes, those are mistakes that pet-owners should not make. But those pet-owners don't get people throwing money at them to make them stop misbehaving.

Such is the case with a recent cost-cutting program in Pennsylvania. See, the police officials in Jefferson Hills, near Pittsburgh, had a funding problem. They didn't have anymore money, so they needed to trim the budget a bit. They didn't want to lay off police officers or scrimp on their uniforms, computers, or weapons. No, what they did was cut the canine program.

Residents of Jefferson Hills responded by banding together and raising money, in an attempt to bring back the dog. It's just one dog, see, and his name is Fritz. Fritz and his handler rode together in a patrol car. Among other activities, they visited schools and talked to students about abstaining from doing drugs.

That's all well and good, but the canine program had an annual pricetag of $7,000. That's not much in the grand scheme of things, but the handler who traveled with Fritz was paid as much as $30,000 extra for his efforts. So the total savings was $37,000.

Undeterred, a convenience store on-the-spot created a "Fritz Bone," a picture of — you guessed it — a dog bone. People have so far bought about 600 of the Fritz Bones, which cost one dollar each. There's $600. Where will the extra tens of thousands of dollars come from?

Would these people have been so up in arms if the cost-cutting measures had included fewer police or fewer guns? Certainly not. Yet cut the canine program and a grass-roots fundraising operation springs up.

What's so special about Fritz? Yes, it's important to teach kids about the dangers of doing drugs. Yes, it's important for laws to be enforced and officers to be protected and human rights not to be violated. All of that can be done by people.