Mauvaise:
That’s a cop out posting technique: It basically is saying “The only reason people might disagree with my reply is because they are part of a Scylla adoration society”…
You don’t even allow that someone might have a legitimate response to your opinion. It seems like you’re trying to pre-emptively “protect” yourself from a response. If you can’t handle legitimate responses…kitchen-heat-bye.
You know, I wanted to be appalled by the situation, but I can’t be anything but saddened. What a terrible situation to find one’s self in.
Or you could have shipped him to these people. They specialize in providing care to unadoptable animals for their natural lifespan.
Although they’re all coming from the right place, I think maybe enough with suggestions as to what Scylla could have done with Bear. It seems to me from that a lot of thought and agony went into making the decision to euthanize Bear, and I guess I feel it’s more appropriate to offer condolences and comiserate than to posthumously pose other options that can’t be considered now. Jeff Olsen raises this point, saying he wished Scylla came to the board before, but IMO all suggestions are moot now. It’s a shitty situation, and my heart really goes out to you, Scylla. From my p.o.v., you made a responsible decision.
I’ve worked in rescue, and I train dogs…
And I have to say that no, I’m not appalled by this. Scylla did what most people are too chickenshit to do - this dog was HIS dog. He was an old dog. He could have brought him to the pound, where he would have been kept for a few days, never adopted because he was too old, untrustable, and loud, and he would have never even been LOOKED at… would have been marked down as a problem dog and euthanized, without the loving arms of this “dad” to make the journey safe.
Rescue groups would not have taken Bear.
The pound would have had him put down.
A no-kill shelter would probably have had him put down for aggressive behavior.
ANY trainer will tell you that, sometimes, dogs can’t be placed in new homes. They’re too volatile, they’re too aggressive, they’re too dominant… Scylla did the right thing - he didn’t hand the “problem” over to someone new. He put the dog to sleep before someone got injured, his child disfigured, or his neighbour’s pet killed. The dog could never be trusted again.
**Now… to Scylla: ** Hon, I felt the same way when I put down my last malinois - and she was old, in bad health… and I still felt like I cheated her somehow. Just remind yourself you did the right thing for your family, AND for Bear. For all you know, those trusting eyes you were looking into were saying “thank you.”
Elly.
Oh, and obfusciatrist? Great link, great sanctuary. But see those dogs? they’re playing with other dogs. They live with other animals. They have FUN 
They are taken care of.
Bear would have had to be isolated. He may have ended up killing another dog. He would have been put down.
One of my friends’ best buddy was suffering from a form of canine mood disorder - they tried EVERYTHING, just like Scylla. They tried all the drugs, all the training methods… everything… but in the end, his dog had gone bananas, and was a time bomb…
He could have sent the dog off to a no-kill shelter… But that would only have delayed the inevitable.
A shortl story:
After our beloved dog of 12 years was put down, I was persuaded to to adopt a 5 year old Akita with issues. The dog bonded with me but posed a threat to the rest of my family. When he challenged my 75 year old FIL, I realized that he had to go. I explained the situation to the woman had engineered the adoption. She poo pahed my fears and insisted that we return the dog to her kennel so that she could “find some that knew how to deal with large dogs.” Now please bear in mind that I have had 100 pound plus dogs all my life.
Two days after I returned him, he savaged a kennel worker. She ended up with 42 stitches in her arm. The dog was destroyed.
My point? **Scylla **, you did the right thing.
This is the reason we all cry at the end of Old Yeller. Too many times, doing what has to be done HURTS. Sorry you got forced into an unwinable situation, Scilla. FWIW, I think you found the only correct solution to your own personal Kobyiashi Maru test.
Scylla you did do the right thing. Sounds to me like Bear had a great life and that’s something to feel good about. I feel for ya, but you did what you had to do to protect your family.
Scylla, my heart bleeds for you. What a tough decision to make. But the right ones often are.
Bear may not have attacked you, as you are a big guy. Your daughter, however, could have been in great danger.
Posters who have never seen you might not grasp the concept of this dog threatening you as a problem. People, Scylla is a big muscular guy who would intimidate a dog in his right mind.
You did the right thing, I know it. I am a dog person to the nth degree, and that means making the tough decisions.
I am so sorry.
Scylla, it sucks hard beyond my ability to describe that you had to do what you did. But you felt you did have to do it out of care for your family, safety for your neighborhood, and most importantly (to me at least) loyalty to Bear.
The old guy had the life he wanted for a long time. How many of us (animal or human) can say that? When he was uprooted (out of necessity) he couldn’t adjust and got miserable. To me it’s no different than if he’d had an untreatable, very painful but non life-threatening disease. His quality of life was or was rapidly becoming zero.
Your putting him down kept the scales of good life days vs. bad life days balanced in his favor. It was a shitty situation to be put in, but you stood up. For whatever it’s worth, you have my respect. You made a hard choice, and you did it the hard (but best) way.
A few weeks ago I had to take Bitz the Wonder Mutt to the vet. No big deal, just a checkup to renew her prescription. A man was in the waiting room with a 1000 yard stare. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, “My dog’s in there getting put to sleep.”
I kept my tone calm and friendly, but inside I lost my shit. I told him, “Do you love your dog?”
He looked at me like I was nuts and said, “Of course.”
“Has your dog been good and loyal to you?”
He smiled a little, dropped his head and said, “I see where you’re going. I should be in there with her, shouldn’t I?”
I said, “It’s really none of my business, but if she’s been such a good dog that you’re this upset about putting her down, I know I’d feel like I owed it to her to pet her head and let her know her person loves her while she’s slipping away. Sorry if that’s out of line.”
He got up, went to the receptionist and she led him back. I saw him again on the way out. He stopped, shook my hand and said, “Thanks, from both of us.” His face was wet; he was sucking snot, and I had all I could do to keep from crying myself.
You stood up and stayed with Bear in his last moments, keeping that tail wagging and letting him know he was loved. You’re a class act in my book, and Bear was lucky to have found you to adopt.
Tough day, Scylla. Sorry.
Your story reminded me, of course, of the movie Old Yeller. As you’ll recall, it ended with the promise of happier times a new puppy brings. I hope, when the time is right, that you’ll find a similar happiness.
I too feel the decision you made was a responsible one. Tough, but just. Mother Nature is not always fair or pretty and the life you gave Bear and the “humaneness” of his death was likely more than he could have expected from her.
I’m really sorry, Scylla; what an awful situation.
Add my voice to folks that work at animal shelters, though, who know how dangerous a dominant, agressive dog can be. We’re party now to a 2-year-old lawsuit over an aggressive golden retriever that bit a little girl so hard that it broke her leg.
The retriever was euthanized, of course. If it had been euthanized a week earlier, the little girl’s leg wouldn’t be broken.
And it could have been much, much worse.
It sounds like you did the right thing in a tragic situation. Thank you especially for not giving Bear over to a sheltering organization. Even if you’d found one to take him in, they’d likely have kept him locked up for the rest of his life, driving him ever crazier and more miserable. And with 5 million dogs and cats euthanized in the US every year due to animal overpopulation, it’s as wasteful of resources as it is cruel to the animals.
My thoughts go out to you.
Daniel
No, that might be your understanding of my words, but that’s not what I meant. What I meant was that I’ve been around long enough to know and have seen first hand what happens to someone who speaks out against a popular poster or popular opinion, or gods forbid, both. I was just saying that I understood what I was doing when I want against the grain to speak my mind.
Huh? I’m not wading through a 3+ page thread on the Catholic Church trying to figure out your point. If the title is your point, you’re speaking to the wrong woman – I’m not christian, nor do I aspire to any “christlike compassion” so I’m not sure where my comment and your thread link come together.
Scylla: Not that my opinion matters to you, nor should it, but it does ease my heart a little that you did at the very least consider other options before decided to put Bear down. I may still not approve of your final decision, but I’ll at least refrain from speaking out against it – I am sorry about Bear.
Scylla, I’m so sorry. I want to cry, too. As bad as it feels, you did the right thing. I had to hold my grandmother’s dog when they put him to sleep and it was the hardest thing I have ever done. I dreamed about that sound and randomly broke into tears for several days thereafter. And I didn’t even really like her dog, but it was the best thing for him.
Bear knows that, too.
mauvaise, I personally think it’s kinder to put down an older dog than trying to find a new home. We have an employee bulletin board at work and it breaks my heart to see ads things like this: “Moving/Can’t take Bear/Free to a Loving Home” along with a picture of an older family pet. 
I mean, don’t these people realize that tearing a dog away from his family, his pack, after TEN YEARS, is just downright cruel? How would you feel if you were torn from your family and just expected to bond with another family? And don’t think dogs don’t mourn. They do. Bear was in the twilight of his life. And the last face he saw was his owner who loved him, bad breath and all. Good for him.
I lost a beloved pet 3 weeks ago and this thread is really hard to read.
Scylla, don’t second guess what you did as a result of the few posters who disagreed with your actions. Putting an animal that you love down is an extremely hard decision. I’m sure you would not have made the decision you did if you thought there was an alternative that was workable. You may have saved someone from getting seriously hurt. My condolences to you.
Scylla, I am very sorry for what you had to go through. Amazing that even this dog, in a way, showed unconditional love to its owner.
On the other hand, owning a pet (or bringing a child into this world) does not require a license. Anyone, no matter how unqualified, can get a dog, accept a stray dog and then really screw it up royally. You and your vet had one opinion and I understand how hard it is sometimes to go against the opinion of a so called professional.
“Alpha” is a cheap excuse. An excuse that is necessary for covering for your (and whoever owned him before) mis-behaviour and mis-training. Although some dogs have a natural tendency to try to move into an Alpha role it by no means has to go that way. As a matter of fact, you would have done your dog and your family a big favor if you had taken Bear out of the (unconsciously) assigned Alpha role. You found out too late that an Alpha dog cannot function in the human world which was not clear to you when there were no humans around.
There are indeed very few dogs that have to be put down because of aggressiveness. Most of the time, those dogs are aggressive not because of Alpha dominance but because they were put into an that role and cannot cope or because of fear (sometimes caused by the same reason).
Ultimately, I respect your decision because it was definetely more convinient and easier than having to work with the dog for years to move him out of the assigned role. That is IMHO an acceptable reason when dealing with an animal’s life. It does not work that way when having to deal with similar human issues. But I am sure you thought about all of that already.
I’m not saying what he should have done, and of course it is pointless to point out what he could have done. But I thought it an appropriate place to point out a resource for anybody interested. And I am the one who has pissed people of here saying “cats die, then you get a new one.” I’d say the same about dogs.
According to my conversation with one of the founders of Best Friends last week, they would have taken Bear, and he would not have been completely isolated. He may have been separated, but he would have been within sight of other dogs and had regular interaction with people every day (each dog there gets its own individual food dish, adjusted to their tastes or needs and walks are taken at regular intervals - and they have almost 700 dogs at a time).
How are you doing, Scylla?
Just remember you are a good, brave person.
You are in my thoughts and prayers.