Comments on: Keith Pikett’s Miracle Dogs

By: XO

XO — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 17:30:13 +0000

WOW!! Anybody can teach a dog tricks..I do believe that dog scents should n’t ever be used in any case. The dogs wasn’t there nor neither was the owner..I have so much animosity regarding this cause I personally experienced it from my son’s case. This man is crooked and up to know good out of Fort Bend Cty. I wouldn’t trust him let alone his dogs…Itz a joke..People has no idea unless you was there.. he Jurors are just as bad no physical evidence peoples..Enough said.

By: markm

markm — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 23:49:33 +0000

When jurors believe that dogs found a 17-year-old scent, it’s not just the dog handler that’s the problem.

By: Tybalt

Tybalt — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 00:50:17 +0000

I don’t think I mentioned it earlier this year when you wrote that column on sniffer dogs, Radley, but it’s one of the best pieces of police journalism I’ve ever read. To the point, accurate, clear as a bell and well argued. Kudos. Just read it again and it was even better the second time around.

By: kant

kant — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 23:13:21 +0000

In pikett’s defense, SCOTUS pretty much declared dogs absolutely infallible and perfectly unbiased/objective anyway. So who is he to disagree with the highest court in the land.

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 22:56:43 +0000

#5 SJE

FloO: haha! Next up, people who can read goat entrails.

Don’t be dissing the fine art of goat entrail reading! It really works, why… Once I was able to locate a dead goat just by reading the entrails and letting them point the way!

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 22:08:42 +0000

“It wasn’t like I just picked them out of the clear blue sky,” the former sheriff said recently, referring to the Winfreys.

Of course not! You picked them because they were easy targets of opportunity the same way any predator picks a meal.

Wait for the old man to end up back in jail, pay a “Jailhouse Snitch” to fabricate evidence… Bam! Case closed!

I refuse to believe that virtually every crime is committed by master criminals who have perfected the art of leaving no evidence…. No. I rather believe that the Police are just incompetent investigators, who, without the aid of false confessions, Jailhouse Snitches, and a criminal justice system totally stacked in their favor would rarely be able to build a case good enough to go to trial.

By: SJE

SJE — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:44:42 +0000

FloO: haha! Next up, people who can read goat entrails.

By: FloO

FloO — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:23:58 +0000

I believe Pikett puts the evidence in coffee cans for the lineup.

What if the dogs are indicating a preference for Maxwell House over Folger’s?

Oh but I’m sure it was done real scientific-like, by making sure the brands of coffee were all the same.

I’m pretty sure that anytime a prosecution witness starts being flown around the country to testify in many cases you know something is very wrong.

By: SJE

SJE — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 18:32:02 +0000

Miracle is the right word. Something that occurs outside the realms of normal experience, defies physical laws, and is an experience of faith. Of course the faithful here are law enforcement, who are the only ones who can interpret the mystical signs. The unfortunate side of this faith based reasoning is that those who are not of the faith are deemed sinners and damned by the faithful to a very real purgatory.

By: Chris Marlowe

Chris Marlowe — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 17:52:31 +0000

Wow….just….wow. A “scent lineup?” Did they do this after they heard spectral evidence and looked to see which ones floated or sank in the river?

By: Maggie McNeill

Maggie McNeill — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 16:59:54 +0000

My Labs are outside dogs; they have a heated doghouse on our large porch, and I let them out soon after sunrise. Sometimes they start barking (for whatever reason) before dawn, and to discourage that I won’t open the porch door as long as they’re barking. If I walk outside and they emit as much as a single bark, I simply stand there with arms folded until they remain quiet for at least a minute.

Now, I never taught them this trick; they merely learned it on their own. All I have to do is fold my arms and they instantly shut up and stand quietly with wagging tails. Dogs are pack animals; they’ve been designed by Nature to respond to non-verbal cues, even very subtle ones. So why are people so surprised when they do just that?

Methinks criminal-court judges in this country need to be forced to watch at least one season of The Dog Whisperer before being allowed to hear any case in which canine “testimony” plays a part.