Need help with my dog's bad behavior

In My Humble Opinion
21

What a sad situation. I can sympathise, having been in the position of having had to put down an otherwise healthy dog because her poor temperament made her a misery to herself and a danger to others.

I would though, first of all consider having a vet look at your dog. An older dog could be suffering some physical decline, such as arthritis, which is causing her discomfort or outright pain, and making her self-protective or irritable. I’ve read the Lyme in dogs can cause sudden onset aggression, as can some neurological disorders. If your dog has been an exemplary, if timid, citizen for eight years, there might well be a physical basis to her behavioural deterioration which can be ameliorated.

However, in the absence of a readily cured physical cause for her behaviour you really only have two courses of action; to make a major commitment to keeping her adequately confined away from other people, and supervised, constantly, for the rest of her life, or euthanasia.

It seems as if your wife is unwilling to make the commitment to constant supervision, so you have a sad choice to make.

If it’s any consolation, I think that dogs with this kind of innate fearfulness are rarely happy dogs. They live in such anxiety with such a constant awareness of inchoate threat, that even quite small changes in their environment are extremely stressful to them and can trigger aggression. You can’t reassure a dog who is afraid of everything.

Truly, your wife’s response seems really out of kilter. I can understand someone being highly stressed by the prospect of losing a beloved dog, but the corollary of that would surely be a determination to do what is necessary to protect others from the dog and thus a commitment to confinement and supervision for the sake of the dog and the humans…

My very uneducated guess would be that this is about more than the dog, no matter how stressful that situation is on its own. My probably presumptuous take on this, is that the my dog/your dog comment might indicate that this is about power in your relationship, with the dog symbolising something other than just her sad, hairy self, to your wife.

I wish you good luck in a very hard decision.

22

What an excellent post - your guess is probably right on the money. I suspect that any suggestions that are proposed by me are going to be opposed for this very reason. At this point I have convinced my wife that the dog needs constant supervision while outside. I also brought home the muzzle she wanted to use because if nothing else it is at least visible evidence to the neighbors that we are taking the situation seriously and are taking SOME action. Hopefully, my wife will call the vet today to get some advice, and perhaps an appointment for an evaluation. I sense that she fears what the vet will say and is reluctant to call. When I tell her what the possible consequences are, I don’t think she believes me. I think she is still in denial that the dog is capable of inflicting serious injury (“It was just a nip on the butt”, etc.). In any event, I have found that suggesting solutions is counter-productive, so I’m backing off. I’m going to do everything I can do to keep everyone safe (supervising the dog, talking to the neighbors to set some ground rules until the situation is considered safe by everyone involved), but I’m done fighting about it.

Anne Neville I appreciate the support, but I think that’s an oversimplification of what happened. The dog is not routinely unsupervised and ignored and left outside. Both of us work and my wife gets home first after picking up our daughter from day care. So she’s usually the one that let’s the dogs out to relieve themselves. On this particular day, she had bundles to put inside, so she let the dogs out while she was unloading the car and taking my daughter to the bathroom. Not that this is an excuse for the dogs being unsupervised - it obviously only takes a few minutes for a problem to happen. But the dogs are not ignored, which is what your post seems to imply. Both dogs are beloved members of the family and we try to involve them in as much of what we do as possible.

Renee thanks for mentioning that. To be honest, I hadn’t considered that as a possibility, but I think it is worth asking the vet about. My wife has agreed in words to make sure the dogs are never unsupervised. It remains to be seen if she is as committed in deed. I don’t think she is crazy, I think blackhobyah got it right and it’s a power issue between her and I. I think the result of this is that she has unrealistic expectations. Hell, maybe I do too. Maybe I’m overreacting and being too analytical. Since I didn’t witness any of the events, I have to rely on second (and in the most recent case, third) hand information. Maybe I can get a better grasp after I talk to the neighbors and see what their take on it all is.

23

Woops. I mentally combined Lissa’s post with Renee’s. Sorry about that. Thank you Lissa for suggesting something else to ask the vet about. Renee I don’t think my wife is crazy I think she’s being unrealistic. Hope that clears up my last post a bit.

24

Another possibility is to get your neighbors more involved, especially with your wife. If the neighbors told your wife that they will only feel safe if the dog is inside a fence or run, that would take the pressure off of you. It would help if they made it and either/or choice (fence or legal action to remove the dog). If it were my child, I would be rallying the neighborhood to require a real fence for your dog. And with the request coming from the nieghbors, your wife can’t (rationally) make this a my dog vs. your dog argument.

You also need to keep in mind that you have just admitted to being quite aware of the dangerous status of your dog on a public messageboard. You have also acknowledged that you are unwilling to take many of the precautions available to you. Should something horrible happen, you could be in more trouble than you think. I am not a lawyer; just wanted you to be aware of what you’re doing.

25

Either of which is cheaper, easier and a better outcome than building a fence apparently. :rolleyes:

26

I have a psychiatrist friend who has several dogs that have lived for many years together…long enough to establish who is who. One, however, is an aggressive Kelly Blue terrier and ocassionally ‘snaps’ taking on one dog in particular. After several visits to the vet for injuries, the terrier is on medication and is now a very mellow dog. There is also a rescue dog in the group that is fearful of men. I have a professional dog trainer friend and his solution, if she wanted to eliminate the fearfulness, was to take the dog into situations with strangers. In this case he would have walked the dog in town. He also stressed the owner’s response of trying to reassure the dog men new to the dog were not a threat was sending a message to the dog that there was concern. So it is twofold…act normal as you would without the dog in your presence, putting the dog in situations where it is uncomfortable but sees you are not and that it is safe. Possibly a combination of both medication and training both yourself and the dog would work.

27

I have had veterinary records subpoenaed. Probably hurt the pet owner’s case when I had written in black and white that the dog was a danger and euthanasia was advised.

28

:eek:

People even suggesting euthanasia are scaring the bejesus out of me. What the hell is wrong with you people?

29

^ Ever seen a child with a disfiguring facial wound from a dog bite? I have.
http://www.digitalstoryteller.com/YITL/Lara%20Hartley/images/small/0527Dog%20bite%20girl300.JPG

30

I think it’s horrible when people have pets euthanized for convenience reasons, and a tragedy when they have to have them put down for unaffordable health problems. But I think euthanasia is entirely justified if the dog is a danger to your family or to others in your neighborhood.

I agree 100%.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I was under the impression that the dogs were unsupervised outside for long periods of time.

31

Good point. Maybe GWVet could convince the neighbors to just have their kid put down.

32
  1. The dog is NOT a danger to his family.

and

  1. The dog is not a danger to members of the neighborhood that stay OUT of his yard!

If my neighbor’s child climbs a tree in my yard and falls out of it, should I cut down my trees?

What if a child comes and jumps in my rose bushes and gets all scratched up? Those could be ripped out I suppose. Too bad if I like roses. We have to think of the children!

Maybe I should take everything out around my house and pave the lot. But what if a child is trespassing and trips and skins his knee?

Hmmm… perhaps the problem is the child’s lack of supervision and NOT the yard/dog/tree??

33

I love my dog. Very much. But I love my daughter more. And if there was ever any reason for me to believe that my dog might harm my daughter, it would be an easy choice.

As many people have pointed out, dominance biting or even the threat of it is much easier to manage. Hand feeding and “nothing in life is free” applied in assiduous and consistent amounts will effectively extinguish dominance behaviour. Biting in response to fear is almost impossible to extinguish – unless you can manage to have your dog live in a bubble where nothing will trigger a fear response, and two episodes so close to each other have reinforced this behaviour for your dog enormously.

For your own sake, if you choose not to euthanize this dog, keep “Queenie” and your daughter apart AT ALL TIMES. Your apparent complacency in this regard is entirely unwarranted.

34

But if you have a pool or something like that, you are required to have a fence around the yard. The law does recognize that kids go into other people’s yards and do things they shouldn’t, and requires people to mitigate that risk.

35

None of this is relevant to GWVet’s decision. The law is there whether you agree with it or not. He knows that his dog has a tendency to attack and he has not taken appropriate precautions to prevent that from happening. He will be at fault should his dog attack someone, even if it is on his property.

If there is something dangerous in your yard, keep people out. Invisible fences don’t do that. You have to fence in pools for the same reason.

36

I should also point out that “getting all scratched up” and “skinning your knee” are both very different from being attacked by a large dog. A kid who skins his knee or gets scratched up by rosebushes will be better in a few weeks at most, and is unlikely to require medical attention. Kids can and do die from being attacked by dogs. Kids who survive a dog attack may have scars for life (I have a scar from being bitten by a dog when I was 8), and some may require extensive (and expensive) reconstructive surgery or be disfigured or disabled for life. That sort of thing is very unlikely to happen as a result of being scratched up by rose bushes or skinning your knee on concrete.

37

Well I can show you pictures of what other children do to each other on purpose and by accident, should we have them put down as well?

Actually, don’t answer that, this is GQ, and I don’t want to argue something I feel strongly about.

OP: But this gives me an idea, how about you show the neighborhood kids those pictures of disfigured children, maybe they’ll think twice about trespassing.

38

Of course not. Then again, we do not routinely castrate our male children to make them more pleasant companions.

39

Personally I’m against that as well. I can understand something like a vasectomy, and even that is a gray area, but I am dead-set against castration of male dogs without a valid medical reason. So yes, to be fair, if you let owners castrate their dogs, you should let parents castrate their teenagers.

40

Every epidemiological study done by the CDC has shown a strong correlation between dog bite wounds in people and intact male dogs.

www.doh.state.fl.us/Disease_ctrl/epi/rabies/Rabies_Guidebook2005.pdf (PDF)
http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/sep03/030915i.asp