Im sure that was a hard decision but it was likely the best choice
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I hope the shelter and/or rescue will be very realistic and transparent about this dogâs needs. Itâs not just about placing the dog in a pet-free household. It sounds like this dog will also need a strong, very capable owner who can hang onto the leash and ensure the dog will never get loose to run after a bicycle or jogger. Similarly, a house with kids/teens could be problematic, because they have a way of being careless about inadvertently letting the dog escape (this was a repeated problem with my neighborsâ high-prey instinct dog).
I know Iâm making some assumptions from just one incident, but my guess is this dog needs a fairly specialized environment.
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Maybe I should have made 2 things clearer: âexerciseâ to me means whatever is perfect for the dog. This can be âa jobâ or just walks or ⊠And if people donât do their research before they get a dog Iâm immune if they are surprised that a dog is work.
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And my point is, no amount or type of exercise was going to stop my neighborsâ dog from chasing and trying to kill small dogs when he got the chance. They got multiple trainers involved, and the behavior still kept repeating.
Now, could the behavior have been redirected if such efforts had started when the dog was a young puppy? Very possibly. This was also a male dog who was neutered late and allowed to play very rough with another male when they were both âadolescents.â So I do believe the dog was ruined by a lack of skillful handling as a youngster.
Be that as it may, it proved impossible to render the dog âsafeâ as an adult. It is simplistic to suggest that every dog behavioral problem can be solved âif only you give it the right exerciseâ!
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Leash? Muzzle? Fence? Itâs a dog no tyrannosaur.
In my neighborsâ case, the dog weighed about 120 and the owner was a petite woman, so she could not safely walk the dog. But the real problem was she had two popular teenagers who had friends in and out of the house all the time, so invariably a gate or garage door would be left open⊠and disaster would ensue. After 3 little dogs were sent to the hospital, I guess the Animal Control officer wasnât of a mind to see if the dog could be placed in a more appropriate home. --Which is sad, the whole thing wasnât the dogâs fault.
But anyway, thatâs why I say the dog under discussion in this thread needs a carefully selected home.
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A lot of vets advise neutering large dogs late now.
I had a dog that could have a pretty high prey drive towards little dogs. I am a real stickler about not letting dogs just out, though, so that was never an issue. I would completely agree that exercise didnât fix it. I did a lot of obedience training with her and with time, I got to a point that I was able to redirect her attention. It was a major issue when neighbors let their little dogs out off leash and we were walking by, but fortunately even then she never hurt one. Iâm not sure that itâs an issue that is caused by how theyâre raised. My dog had high prey drive with other creatures too - bunnies, cats, rabbits.
The one I have now has less prey drive, but really tiny dogs do interest her a bit too much. All of the trainers I have been to have given the same advice - redirect her attention to a job. It doesnât fix it and Iâd never want her to be off leash with a chihuahua.
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So, basically, the dog really might not have been the problem at all. Who chooses to get a dog that is physically too large to walk? I mean - what do you do to go to the vet, etc?
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Oh yes, I donât disagree with this at all. Many times I bemoaned the neighborsâ stupidity in getting a dog they were not equipped, nor inclined, to handle appropriately. Things only got worse when the couple got divorced and the dog was left in the custody of the petite wife and her teenage children.
So I would agree: this very likely was a human-caused tragedy.
Still, when you get an adult dog from a shelter, you have to deal with the dog that is⊠not the dog that could have been had it been raised differently from puppyhood.
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This story reminds me of something I experienced. Several years ago I took in a very sweet one year old beagle. His previous owners took great care of him, but because of their work schedules, he spent most of the day in a cage. Iâve never used a cage for a dog beyond house training so it didnât occur to me that he would need a transition period. I just launched him right into our lives with another dog, daily hikes in the woods, meet the horses, free run of the house while weâre at work all day. It was a situation of complete over-stimulation and he developed severe anxiety before I realized what I had done. Once I figured it out, I took him back to his comfort zone and very slowly worked him up to our lifestyle. Iâm sure that if he had been a more assertive personality, his anxiety would have come through as aggression. It took a lot of work to rehabilitate him, but we did succeed. A very valuable lesson for me.
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I understand everyoneâs concern about the dog being over-stimulated during the first few days in a new house, but as a runner and a former owner of a very small, docile dog I walked very frequently, I have been attacked on numerous occasions and my dog was nearly killed twice in dog attacks by unleashed dogs (my dog was always walked on a leash).
The owners always assured me how wonderful, sweet and friendly the dog was with them and had owned the dog for years. Of course, they were covering their asses, but presumably most people donât want to live with dogs who try to kill them. Like others have said, some dogs just have a very strong prey drive. Little dogs and people moving at what seems to the dog a strange way (like a jogger) can trigger that instinct. A woman at a barn where I rode had two dogs and a cat, and the dog killed the cat after living with the cat for months (but left the other, smaller dog unharmed).
Every situation is different, but at minimum, owners need to be aware that dogs can behave very differently in different situations. Thatâs true of all dogs, not just pit bulls, but I also think that people need to be realistic that large dogs can and do have the power to be very dangerous in a way that smaller dogs donât. I realize that many small dogs (if untrained) can be âbitersâ and do terrible damage, too, though. But (in general) theyâre at least easier to restrain. Or more likely to be carried around in some clueless personâs purse.
In my area, thereâs always lots of pits and pit crosses in shelters. I sometimes think that thereâs a tendency to evangelize on the part of well-meaning people that the breedâs reputation is unfounded. So people who are first-time dog owners whoâd probably be better off with say, a laid-back dog that some elderly person had to give up, feel that they âshouldâ adopt a pit, and donât give the dog the necessary training and support the dog needs.
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Completely agree with all of this ^ ^ ^
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Yes, especially the idea of evangelizing.
I know several who fit that description.
Canât walk the dog on a leash, do not exercise the dog, canât do certain common care (trim nails for example) for fear of getting bit.
They refuse to see the harm they do to the individual dog and the breed they profess to care about, through poor stewardship.
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I couldnât agree with this more. I think that there can be such pressure to rescue and avoid breeders that well-meaning people want to get a dog from the shelter, where most of the dogs are large.
I just absolutely do not think that the prey drive was related to over stimulation. We will never know what wouldâve happened if the dog had been given time to decompress, but my personal suspicion is that the prey drive is the reason this dog was in a shelter and that it wouldâve shown up regardless.
Itâs a big responsibility to have a large dog, especially one of any kind of working background. I know of several incidents where joggers have been bit in my own neighborhood - one by a border collie and one by a German Shepherd. Both of these dogs were owned by more casual dog owners. I also knew a woman with a standard poodle that would attempt to chase and nip at joggers going by, but the difference was that she wasnât a casual dog owner. She was able to control it but Iâm sure if she had totally relaxed and treated the dog like an average owner might, the behavior wouldâve returned. She stopped it by giving the dog commands as a jogger approached, and the dog was never loose.
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I was just going to post that I feel for all the pits in animal shelters. Our local shelter is about 90% pits. They are so sweet at the shelter, I know several people that have wonderful pits. But I recognize I am just too lazy to properly train and socialize such a powerful dog.
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Oh wow! You hit it right on the head. We have been to shelters before and got the cold shoulder when we specifically asked for a non-bully or non-bully cross. We were looking for my MIL who is tiny, weak from physical issues, and does not train her dogs. Theyâre more like roommates, lol, so they have to be easy going and not too strong. Still, I was scum for requesting a non-pit. Actually, you have to say non-bully or non-bully cross or theyâll show you obvious crosses with ginormous heads and jowls. No. Sheâs 99 lbs soaking wet! She canât handle a dog with a strong will or oneâs thatâs physically powerful, thank you.
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The big no-kill rescue near me was calling obvious pits, and pit-crosses âLab crossesâ, Since there are tons of Military adopting, and no pits or pit crosses can ever live in base housing, this Lab cross lie didnât work, and a lot of the dogs came right back to the shelter. The dogs coming on base to housing have to register at the vetâs office, so they werenât fooled for a second. They now are honest, and call them pits or pit crosses.so those dogs donât get adopted and instantly returned. Plus, many military, and civilian employees do live overseas, so some breeds simply canât go to another country, or even be transported on some airlines.
I used to watch the Animal Cops, Animal Precinct shows on Animal Planet, and the Detroit group only adopts pits and pit crosses if they were strays, and the person claiming them could prove ownership. They were worried about adoptions that were for dog fighting rings. The dog catchers said that there were 500,000 + pits and crosses in the Detroit area, and the dog fighting issue there was huge.
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I guess itâs a mix of more responsible owners buying into spay/neuter programs and not creating as many other mixes. Plus people dumping pit bull mixes that are causing trouble for them. I get that there are bad owners that create problem dogs, but rehabbing those dogs is not as easy as it sounds.
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Yes, Iâm not sure where the messaging of ânot all pit bulls and pit crosses are badâ (which is certainly true) became âall pit bulls are suitable for all ownersâ (which isnât true of any dog breed) but it has.
One of the great things about dogs is that dogs come in all shapes, sizes, and temperments. Some people are great and thrive with large, very active, loyal dogs who require a great deal of management, while other people need gentle, snuggly little muffins. Of course, all dogs need training and all dogs need love, but a responsible rescue (and there are many) will ensure a good owner-dog match. Unfortuately, there are a handful that are more hooked on an ideology that if you donât want any dog, you donât deserve any dog.
Itâs such a sad situation in many areas: re shelters filled with unwanted and unsuitable dogs from fighting rings. When I was eight, I got my first dog from the local ASPCA. My parents and I knew nothing, and we picked out the second dog we saw, a small, year-old dog who had been found quite literally rumaging around in a junk yard. She was perfect and very patient with our mistakes, and lived a long, healthy life. That type of situation seems almost impossible today.
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Nothing pisses me off more than unleashed dogs. I totally understand that occasionally pups make a jail break and need rounded up, but people walking their dogs around the block with no leash or âyardâ dogs kept with no fence. Like hello, Iâm not trying to have a dog fight on the end of my leash here.
Or flexi leashes in the vet office. Here comes a snarling 8lbs mutt charging at me and my Mal while his owner sits 20 ft away looking at her gd phone. Maâam please get your dog back in your purse before it become a turd or I punt it like a football.
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