I’ve been reading threads on this board for ages about doggies who might be a bit on the cantankerous side getting into trouble by snapping at and/or biting human beings, especially little humans. There’s a couple of them in the Pit as we speak.
I understand the love that is felt for dogs by their owners, and that many of those cranky dogs are the perfect pet normally, but just sometimes they get a bit overwhelmed and lash out.
There’s all sorts of justifications given by the owners as to why their dog was not at fault, and was just reacting in the nature of the dog to the annoyance that was inflicted upon it. All perfectly reasonable and totally understandable.
HOWEVER, it is my humble opinion that an adult dog who has shown aggressive behaviour in any form should be put down, (unless it has been specifically trained as a guard dog of course). If not destroyed, the animal should be muzzled at all times it is in human company, or in an area where people might inadvertantly come into physical contact with it. In other words, all the time.
IMHO, people have greater ‘rights’ to safety than dogs have to life. I personally would have no hesitation in having a dog put down if it showed even the slightest tendency towards agressiveness, whether that be the full-on bite/attack, or even snarling or vicious barking. If my dog did that, I’m afraid they would be getting euthanased on the vet-table before you could blink. I had to do that once. I felt so damned sorry for Graham (yeah, we called our dogs funny names ) but I would have felt sorrier if he’d ever gone beyond unnecessary snarling to actually physically hurting someone.
There’s just too many sad incidences now of the so-called perfect family dog who maims or even kills a kid, or some poor unfortunate old duck who bends over the fence to pat Fido and gets her arm ripped off in the process. Mostly though, the behavioural history shows that the dog had previously shown some aggressive traits, but they were disregarded by the owners because the dog was just being doggy. Or so they rationalised.
I think that there should be consequences for a dog that bites a person in public, but if a dog bites a trespasser while properly restrained on the dog owner’s property, I don’t feel the dog (or its owner) has done anything wrong.
My house is in the city. I have a dog that is not aggressive, but very protective of the family. I am out of the country a lot (like now). One of the things I like about having my dog is that she will protect my wife.
Dog’s that are territorial and protective of their home and owners shouldn’t be punished, in my opinion, they should be rewarded. I do not believe that humans are always in the right and dogs are always in the wrong when it comes to an attack. If someone trespasses and gets bit by a dog, they have suffered the painful consequences of their ill-conceived actions.
Again, I’m not talking about roaming dogs outside of their yard, or dogs in a position to attack the mailman. But I believe that it is possilbe for a dog that is not a threat to the public to be put in a circumstance where it will bite someone and the dog and owner will not be at fault.
That pretty much includes all dogs. Push 'em hard enough or in the right way and most dogs will snap at you, in one situation or another. Common triggers include messing with the dogs food while its eating, small boisterous children who come running at the dog full-speed and scare it, or situations where the dog is scared (being woken up from a sound sleep by a noise, big hulking strangers in the house.)
I think the pit thread you refer to is the one where the poster’s dog was in their own fenced yard, and a neighbor’s child came over, stuck her arm through the one small hole in the fence, and was minorly hurt when one of the dogs snapped at her. Is that “agressive behavior” that requires the dog being destroyed?
Whereas I agree with you that a truly aggressive dog - one that actively goes after a human, or has bitten a person beyond a small snap more than once - probably needs to be put down, anyone who thinks that dogs exist that will never snap at a human or defend their territory is flat out wrong. Dogs aren’t stupid; they will defend themselves if they perceive a threat. Most of the time that means barking and perhaps a snap or two.
And sometimes, just sometimes, the human is at fault as well. Like in the pit thread - the dog’s owner took every reasonable precaution, but the unsupervised kid still got to the dogs. And the result was a very minor injury. The dogs should die for that?!?
I’ll probably be in the minority here, but I rank an higher mammals life not much lower then that of a human. Like Athena said, a truly aggressive dog - one that actively goes after a human, or has bitten a person beyond a small snap more than once - probably needs to be put down, or at least confined to where he can do no harm.
But in all other respects… If a kid ran loose and got hurt while poking a stick in the electrical outlet, would we punish the outlet? No! We’d teach kids to respect electricity and to stay away from it untill they know what they’re doing. I really feel it’s the same with both dogs and people. Kids and adults alike should learn to watch them first, learn their (often communal!) body language, and know when to give either a human or an animal a wide berth. It may cost a little effort, but it is worth it. We teach our kids how to manouver in traffic as well, don’t we?
Three years ago, I’ve been attacked by my own cat. The cat sat on a windowsill and evidently had been taunted beyond endurance by the tomcat from nextdoor; I came in, saw his wild eyes and raised hackles and, stupidly, rushed towards him, hands held out for petting, and going: “ohh Kitty, what’s the matt…OWW!” Bloody scratches on my leg and a trip to the hospital ensued.
Well, I sure paid more attention to his early warning signals after that and would give him a wide berth next time he’s so worked up.
Hell no! Vicious creatures. Dangerous as pit bull they are, if they get at your juggular. I was bitten on the hand once. It wouldn’t let go. Had to use the jaws of life to get it off my finger.
My mother had a similiar experience with the family cat when I was a kid. The dog brought home fleas, and our beloved cat, approaching 14 years as a family pet, got them. She had to be bathed in flea shampoo.
If you’ve ever had a cat, you know you don’t bathe them much if at all. Most hate water with a passion, and our cat was no exception. She tolerated being put in the water to begin with, allowed us to soap her up, but when my mother turned on the faucet to rinse her, she spooked. She was terrified, and sunk her teeth into the nearest thing she could find - my mother’s hand. I don’t recall if we went to the ER or not, but my mother was in pain for several days over that.
According to the OP, the cat should have been put down for that incident. The cat that we had for 16 years, and aside from this one time, never showed any signs of aggression at all. The cat who, when I was brought home from the hospital as a baby, crawled into the crib with me and slept with me every night until I was 14…
Please give me your definition of ‘aggressive’. I’ve been bitten by dogs due to various circumstances and harboured no ill-feeling about it.
As someone pointed out in another thread, dogs are animals and sometimes they do dumb animal things. I’m not sure it makes a huge amount of sense to hold beasts to a higher standard of behaviour than humans.
You know, I came in here to fully agree with the OP. I do think too many dog owners ignore obviously aggressive signs in their doggies “Oh, ignore Fifi, she’s such a dear” and then someone gets hurt.
But the cases you are talking about are way too extreme. Any signs of hostility, aggression, snarling, even? They’re dogs. They’re more domesticated than most animals but still, they’re animals. And I haven’t gotten involved in that Pit thread but it seems blindingly obvious to me the mother of that child is entirely at fault. Entirely. There is no reason why the dog-owner should even have to put a grate over the hole, although unfortunately he probably will have to.
And this is coming from someone who is a parrot fanatic, and parrots aren’t really considered domesticated at all.
There’s just too many sad incidences now of the so-called perfect family dog who maims or even kills a kid, or some poor unfortunate old duck who bends over the fence to pat Fido and gets her arm ripped off in the process. Mostly though, the behavioural history shows that the dog had previously shown some aggressive traits, but they were disregarded by the owners because the dog was just being doggy. Or so they rationalised.
What say the Dope Brigade?
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I guess I am in the minority but I agree with you to some extent. The exception being when a person enters a home not welcomed by the family. Snarling is then expected and IMHO encouraged! This instance would be when someone walks into the home without being admitted by the family. A good dog knows the difference by instinct. (As does one of mine who snarled at my ex husband who took it upon himself to simply walk in as a stranger to the dogs with no knocking. Go Pearly! The other dummy just stood there and wagged her tail in delight, "yeah company, wonder if he has any food??boo Cassie :smack: )
If a dog EVER snarles or snaps at a child, even in the above case scenario, yup, it needs to be put down. I don’t care how much I liked the dog, no excuse ever. That is automatically a “bad dog” no matter if the child took his food or pulled his tail.
Athena, exactly. Humans sometimes, despite their attempts to control themselves, “snap”, and lash out. We forgive them if:
Nobody got killed or got damaged permanently;
We feel they are sorry.
The second part, about regret, “being sorry”, requires a bit of explanation. Regret, as I see it, means that the human or animal has learnt that lashing out has unpleasant consequences. Ideally, both should learn that a. you hurt people you care about; b; you get hurt in return, and C: learn to recognize the signs of any living creature pushed to its limits.
Both humans and animals can learn the opposite lesson, “Hey: if I lose it people get scared of me and do what I want” and *that’*s when they become dangerous. In addition, the human might learn “and if I say I’m sorry afterward,
they can’t touch me!” but I digress.
It has always been proposed that a dog can’t feel sorry in this sense, so putting it down is the only option. Once it has tasted blood and feels dominant, etc. personally, I doubt that. My cat reaction to a kick because I tripped over him is totally different , or a light slap and a hiss if I caught him stealing the cheese. Who can prove that dogs, being the social animals that they are, besides rules for hunt and dominance, don’t have behavioral ways of warning beforehand, and showing regret afterwards? Don’t dogs have to deal with puppies accidentally poking out the eye of Chief dog?
So, I feel the concepts: “mitigating circumstances” and “second chances” and “don;t know what got into me and wont do it again” “I was provoked” should apply, ethically speaking, to both humans and animals.
kambuckta, you’re never going to get people to agree to anything like your proposed rule. It all comes down to whether you like dogs or don’t like dogs. People who don’t like dogs (you, apparently, and me as well) have basically no tolerance for anything a dog does – barking, slobbering, shedding, growling, jumping on you, etc. Conversely, it’s amazing to me what people who like dogs will tolerate from them.
I grew up with dogs and cats. When I was a kid, I knew better than to torment the dog/cat and then run crying to mommy when I was nipped or scratched. Why? Because my mom’s first response to any such complaint was “what were you doing?”. Why? Because she knew that none of our animals would randomly attack us and that said animal was protecting itself from the obnoxious behavior of her children. Didn’t take me long to learn to stop teasing the critters.
One of those dogs chased intruders out of our home. At least, when we got home, the front door was standing ajar (having been pried open), and the dog was lying across the threshold. Nothing inside was missing, or even appeared to have been touched. I’m fairly sure that the dog displayed aggressive behavior in order to accomplish this, definitely growling and snarling, possibly even involving snapping/biting.
My step-daughter was scratched/bitten by our cats a number of times, after having been told to stop doing whatever it was she was doing to annoy the cat. When she got no sympathy, she eventually learned the same way I did, and stopped picking on the pets.
When I was grown and had my first cat, I took him to the vet. Vet asked me to hold him while they obtained a fecal sample. This involves cramming a fairly large (relatively speaking) piece of plastic into the cat’s rectum. I quickly figured out why the vet wanted me to hold him, when he sank his teeth into my hand and didn’t let go until the vet was through. Only time that cat ever even offered any violence.
As far as I can remember, you expect every single dog or cat that I’ve ever known (as well as several horses) to be put down, due to your own unrealistic expectations of perfect animal behavior. (Or is it only dogs that are expected to be perfect, while other animals get a bye?)
While I think that you may be carrying it too far, I do agree with you on general principle, kambuckta. I wouldn’t put a dog down for showing reasonable aggression - reasonable being provoked in some way, or by doing what I expect them to do like guarding my person. In situations like the ongoing pit thread, no, I wouldn’t put those dogs down, although I might seal up the hole in the fence for sheer liability reasons.
But I have put a dog down for becoming unhinged and aggressive. I had a very timid Border Collie bitch a few years ago. She really only responded to me and Cowboy, and just plain avoided the kids, although she never growled or snapped at them. That was fine, but when she decided that my neighbor was evil and should be eaten, that was too much. She took to sneaking through his fence and trying to bite him; he told me about it and I was looking for an alternate home for her when she completely snapped and jumped up at him and bit him over the fence (which was about four feet at that section.) She didn’t break skin, but that was sheer luck, not restraint on her part. She was sneaky about it too - wouldn’t even growl at him if I was around.
I will not have a dog around my children or other people that is that unstable, so I put her down before she did serious damage to him or turned on the kids. It wasn’t easy to do, but it was right.
I agree that a dog that has become unstable might have to be put down. This sometimes happens with dogs when they get older. But the OP’s position would seem to require the eventual killing of every dog, and as someone else pointed out, every animal on earth.
) but I would have felt sorrier if he’d ever gone beyond unnecessary snarling to actually physically hurting someone.