The Puppycide
Database Project

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The original goal of PuppycideDB was to provide a freely-available record of every police shooting of an animal in the United States. While we never achieved that goal, seven years later PuppycideDB remains the largest repository of such records available to the public. Even a small sample of 3,000 killings allowed us to make objective statements about this epidemic of violence for the first time. Occasionally we combined our data with other sources, like how we used information from the CDC WONDER database to demonstrate that the risk of adult death from a dog in the US is essentially zero.

Unfortunately, a wide variety of obstacles made that goal almost impossible. We quickly discovered that accomplishing that goal would require millions of dollars in fees to complete public records requests for the approximately 18,000 separate law enforcement agencies that represent "the police" throughout the United States. Many of those agencies charge burdensome additional fees for "out of state requestors" that are designed specifically to prevent national coverage of malfeseance.

Money was not the only problem. Various states and municipalities have different rules for when police must maintain records for use of lethal force. Not all states require records for killing animals while on duty; others simply require a firearm discharge report. Many records are destroyed after only a few years, ensuring that retrospective national data on this issue will never be obtainable.

• Faces of Puppycide

Sometimes pictures say what words can't. The Faces of Puppycide gallery contains (nonviolent) photos of dogs who have lost their lives in altercations with police. Victims of Puppycide are blamed for their own deaths, declared feral and fundamentally unsafe.

• Project Milestones

PuppycideDB is no longer accepting new database submissions. For support, try reaching out via social media:

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