No, He Didn’t ‘Carry On And Do The Job He Was Trained To Do…’

…because he’s just an animal. As such, he can’t make an informed choice:

Brave three-year-old German shepherd Obi continued to patrol the streets for two hours despite having multiple fractures above his left eye and blood pouring from his nose.

Why was the handler not withdrawing him from duty, and getting him veterinary attention?

His handler, PC Phil Wells, who has trained the dog since he was eight-weeks old, described him as his 'best mate', and was with him that night.

'To his credit he carried on and continued to do the job that he's trained to do.'

He doesn't have any other option, does he? What's he going to do, ask to speak to his union rep?

And the answer to my question seems to be, incredibly, that he didn’t notice anything wrong:

'There were lots of missiles coming at us, bottles, bricks, petrol bombs, street furniture, too many to count and one hit Obi on the top of the head.

'Initially he was a bit shocked but I gave him a check-over and tried to avoid any further injuries and after the initial shock he seemed fine so we carried on for another couple of hours.

'Afterwards he was assessed and was showing signs he needed veterinary help.

'He was lethargic and was bleeding from the left nostril which could be a sign of head trauma so he was taken to the vet.'

Let’s hope this incident causes a flurry of activity in the Met and other police forces, and results in emails headed ‘Warning! If your police dog is hit on the head with a lump of concrete, he may need to go to the vets!’ to handlers.

Or perhaps they are issuing instructions to the wrong dumb beast?

It does maybe explain why so many people die in custody, though, if a head injury isn't seen as worthy of attention until a few hours later.