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You mean the alleged victms lied to the media. I for one am shocked.

Roger Croteau - Express-News SAN MARCOS — San Marcos Mayor Susan Narvaiz on Thursday defended the police officer who detained a speeder and his girlfriend who were trying to rush a dying dog to a veterinary clinic, telling reporters she watched the video shot by the police cruiser’s dashboard video camera.

The video shows the couple was not detained for as long as they claimed and that another officer took the dog and tried to clear its airway, Narvaiz said.

The mayor held the press conference in an attempt to quell weeks of bad publicity over the incident.

The couple has said their teacup poodle, Missy, died as they were kept on the roadside for 20 minutes while Officer Paul Stephens wrote a speeding ticket, despite their pleas that he let them proceed to an all-night veterinary clinic.

At one point, Stephens told them, “It's just a dog. You can buy another. Relax.” He later received a reprimand and counseling from supervisors.

The incident drew nationwide attention when Good Morning America and Inside Edition aired segments on it.

Narvaiz said the city has gotten thousands of phone calls and e-mails demanding he be fired. She said that while Stephens had been "inappropriate and insensitive," she supported the way Police Chief Howard Williams responded to the complaint.

"Without question, the situation was not handled very well by Officer Stephens," Narvaiz said. "But the characterization of the story has led to death threats against the officer and his family by telephone.

“Officer Stephens is a veteran of the Iraq war who joined the San Marcos Police Department in March 2007 after leaving the military. He has been with the department for 15 months. He has no previous history of complaints and has a good record of service with the department."

What if fluffy was already dead?

SAN MARCOS — The San Marcos police chief has reprimanded an officer who drew brickbats from around the nation for delaying two college students as they tried to rush their dying dog to a veterinarian this month.

Officer Paul Stephens, who said, “It's just a dog,” as he held the pair beside Interstate 35, received an oral reprimand and counseling, Police Chief Howard Williams said Tuesday.

“We sustained the complaint that was filed,” Williams said. “We made him watch the tape with his supervisor and he was counseled on how to improve his performance.”

But Williams said he believed his officer's assessment that the dog was not alive when he pulled over Michael Gonzales for going 95 mph on the highway after midnight Aug. 5.

Gonzales and his girlfriend Krystal Hernandez, both Texas State University students, were rushing their teacup poodle, Missy, from San Marcos to an all-night vet clinic in New Braunfels after the dog choked on her food and went limp.

The couple pleaded with Stephens to allow them to get the dog to the clinic and then turn themselves in later, or to let Gonzales stay and get his speeding ticket while Hernandez completed the trip alone. Instead, they were kept at the scene for almost 20 minutes waiting for Stephens to issue the ticket as he chatted with two other officers who arrived.

The students say the dog died while they waited.

At one point, the patrol car's dashboard camera showed Stephens telling a distraught Gonzales: “It's just a dog. You can buy another one. Relax.”

Gonzales said Tuesday he thought an oral reprimand was not sufficient.

“That's not really a punishment at all,” he said. “I don't feel a person like that should be working in law enforcement.”

Gonzales said he was surprised and gratified by the outpouring of support he has gotten from pet lovers. The story has aired nationally on “Good Morning America” and “Inside Edition.”

Two Internet petitions demanding Stephens be fired, both launched Monday afternoon, collected more than 300 signatures in a day. And a YouTube clip of the “Good Morning America” segment has been watched more than 1,500 times and collected dozens of comments, some wishing a similar fate for Stephens as the one that befell Missy.

“I'm glad people understand that it's not just a dog, it's a member of the family,” Hernandez said.

Williams said Stephens was right to stop the speeding car and said the dashboard camera shows Gonzales was clearly too upset to drive safely. But the officer should have tried to calm him down; by showing no sympathy, he made Gonzales more upset, not less, the chief said.

He denied Stephens' actions led to Missy's death.

“This dog was already dead,” Williams said. “That is one of the reasons the officers showed no urgency. Nothing the officers did or said caused this dog to die.”

Hernandez said Missy was still breathing as they waited for the ticket to be written. Gonzales has not decided whether to pursue a lawsuit against the department.

Problem Solved:

Woman buys clones of her deceased pitbull terrier Booger

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South Korean biotechnologists have engineered a pet resurrection that, until recently, seemed commercially impossible: they have reunited a Californian woman with her dearest friend — or, at least, genetic copies derived from the frozen remains of his ear.

More than £25,000 the poorer but weeping with joy, Bernann McKinney, 57, became the world’s first paying customer yesterday in the strange new industry of canine cloning.

Held in her arms was a quintet of newborn puppies, genetically identical not only with each other but with the late, lamented Booger, a pitbull terrier who died of old age two years ago.

Declaring the whole affair a “miracle”, Ms McKinney said: “They are perfectly the same as their daddy. I am in heaven here. I am a happy person.”

Ms McKinney paid a high financial price for the reunion. Even at the knockdown fee offered to her as a first-time cloner, she had to sell her house to meet the cost.

“I had to make sacrifices and I dream of the day, some day, when everyone can afford to clone their pet, because losing a pet is a terrible, terrible loss to anyone,” she said.

After ten years of happy companionship, Ms McKinney felt the loss of Booger keenly. This was, after all, a ferociously loyal hound who had once saved her life by fending off an attacking mastiff.

Ms McKinney’s hand and legs were savaged in the attack and, she said, it was only via Booger’s loyal assistance — fetching her clothes and shoes, bringing her cans of drink and opening doors — that she was able to make it through the long months of recuperation.

The mastiff, another of Ms McKinney’s pets, had been driven mad by being given ten times the recommended dose of medication for a bee sting, she said. She has told US media how the animal attacked her outside her remote farmhouse, shredding her left arm up to the elbow, tearing one of her legs and nearly ripping the fingers off her right hand.

He was chewing at her stomach when she said she called out: “Help me, God. Help me, Jesus. Help me, Booger,” and the smaller dog succeeded in driving off the mastiff long enough for her to drag herself into the safety of her car.

Ms McKinney, a former beauty queen, had to undergo many episodes of reconstructive surgery and was confined to a wheelchair for months.