We had a Sheltie Collie when I was a kid. It was the nicest dog to everyone except the neighbor kid. My mom thought that the kid was throwing rocks at old Toby, and Toby had a negative reaction to that kid because of his actions.
Yeah. it’s our fault!
We had a Sheltie Collie when I was a kid. It was the nicest dog to everyone except the neighbor kid. My mom thought that the kid was throwing rocks at old Toby, and Toby had a negative reaction to that kid because of his actions.
My last dog was not good around kids, so I didn't bring him around kids. He never bit a kid and I was very careful around them and kept kids away and kept him on leash where there were people. The dog was well trained, but it took extra effort around kids and strangers. He also wasn't great around other dogs and as he got older he couldn't go to the dog park anymore. The dog is still alive, but he can't be kenneled (he hurts himself, broke a tooth chewing a cage once) and needs extra care and medication for anxiety. We are probably lucky there were no bites.
Every animal is unique. Even well trained animals can do something unexpected, though cats are more difficult (see siegfried and roy), I'm just saying from what the deleted post said it sounds like the owners tried a lot of things to help their animal and in the end could not correct the problem behavior, and the dog was biting people in the house. I don't know if euthanizing the dog was the best option. It probably wasn't, but I didn't go through it and neither did any of you. I don't think this level of harshness is warranted though. Not all dogs can have biting trained out of them.
I worked at one of the top dog training facilities in the country for a little while. We had one case over the time I was there where the trainer recommended euthanization. That said, it was often the case that a dog just couldn’t be around certain stimuli - be it cats, children, other dogs, etc.
Boo, Hiss.
Yep, that’s right. It’s incredibly rare for a dog to be so much of a problem that putting it down is the only option. From what it sounded like the owners in this case tried a lot of things before settling on their solution.
Do I think it was the best option? No. But some things stand out about this. The dog was biting people in its home even after seeking outside help from behavioral trainers and trying a variety of things. Usually, like you said, the dog can be kept away from triggering stimuli, as I have had to do with my dog, but if the dog can’t live in the home...I mean usually it’s not feasible for someone to change their entire living situation for their dog. In this case they would probably have had to give up the dog. Giving up a dog with behavioral issues will usually end in euthanasia at a shelter.
So in the end, yeah, it’s there not being enough people to adopt pets that is part of the problem.
I’m more upset with people who buy bred dogs over adopting than I am with this story.
I feel for you guys. It’s not an easy decision and I’m sure you feel bad about it.
Last edited by Cowutopia; 26 Jun 2018 at 09:25 AM.
From google: “Each year, approximately 1.5 million shelter animals are euthanized (670,000 dogs and 860,000 cats).”
That's a lot of hot dogs.
Why are you reading this? go to your general settings and uncheck the Show Signatures box already!
Well, I left out the whole "he could have made the whole thing up to garner sympathy since he's done that sort of thing before" but that wasn't the point of the post.
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