Haha I can appreciate that though. My fiancé, being the tremendous animal lover she is (ESPECIALLY dogs), would have ripped you a new one as well lol. I've learned that's one subject I leave alone. But between you and I, dogs are about the only domesticated animal I have compassion for. I would have a hard time shooting a dog unless it was really deserving. We had a distant neighbor once who had a pit they let roam the neighborhood. He was an extremely mean dog that never really attacked anyone, but he definitely showed signs that it was just inevitable one day. Finally one day he grabbed a neighbor's dog through a chain linked fence and somehow managed to hurt it bad enough to kill it. Needless to say he and my .308 met later that afternoon and I didn't lose a minute's sleep over that one. Cats on the other hand, I could give a damn what you do with them.
But I digress. As funny as I like to be with the whole ".45 bullets are only $1/each" thing, I think most of the costs are in the legal processes and appeals and everything. I'm all for a fair trial on the first-go-round. But to me the appeals thing is BS! I realize that innocent people have been executed for crimes they didn't commit, but I think if the gov't would put their foot down more often and stop trying to be so politically correct and please everyone by just saying "ok, guilty. Dead!" then you might deter enough capital crimes that the rate at which you tried them would be so low that the odds of convicting someone innocent would be almost nonexistent. Maybe that's just wishful thinking I don't know.