Animal advocates are raising awareness about the high rates of law enforcement officers who shoot pet dogs while answering calls on duty.

Several pet owners are suing police departments and state legislatures for their mistreatment of their animals.

While there is no official data on how often these killings occur in the U.S., media reports suggest that at least a few dozen pets are killed each year, but many activists suspect more go unreported. Outcry against these senseless killings say that it is an abuse of power by the police and officials should be better trained to deal with pets in the line of duty.

An argument citing a violation of the Fourth Amendment was upheld when a San Jose chapter of the Hells Angels sued the police department and city in 2005 for killing members' dogs during a gang raid in 1998. In federal appeals, a judge found that "the Fourth Amendment forbids the killing of a person's dog ... when that destruction is unnecessary." The Hells Angels won $1.8 million in damages.

Similar lawsuits have been filed in Idaho, California and Nevada, among other states.

Animal-rights activists are concurrently lobbying for increased pet training for police officers. Illinois and Colorado have already implemented some measures to reduce dog shootings, other states are currently considering such legislation.

In 2011, the Department of Justice published a report on police incidents involving dogs along with advice on how to avoid killing the animals.

"It's much more likely that a cop is going to encounter a dog than a terrorist, yet there's no training," Ledy Van Kavage, an attorney for the advocacy group Best Friends Animal Society, said. "If you have a fear or hatred of dogs, then you shouldn't be a police officer, just like if you have a hatred of different social groups."