“Frankly, we stand behind what we did,” said Soumas, who has a 14-year-old pet dog at home. “It wasn’t the most popular thing, and certainly we’ve received a lot of feedback, but I don’t really know what choice we had. The guy that actually had to take the shot feels really bad about it.” Soumas said the deputy that shot the dog had recently taken his own dog to a veterinarian to be euthanized because the animal was in poor health. Calls and e-mails have been pouring into the department since the incident from people furious that the pug was killed, Soumas said/Associated Press. More here.

Question: Why do stories like this trigger such an intense response in readers, after all, worse things happen around us regularly?