(Originally published in Sheltering Magazine, 2003)
Rosie was a loving, beautiful dog with doting owners, but in the end, her predatory instinct made her too dangerous for human society. Her attack on another dog was the last straw for her owners, who vowed never to adopt from a shelter again.
Back in 1998 I had been volunteering with shelter dogs for a couple of years and was firmly convinced that there was a home for every dog out there … somewhere. With training, work, and love, we could fix them all!
A beautiful young pit/lab mix was returned to the shelter for growling at one of her new adopters. I asked my friend Mindy to take Rosie in for a few days, observe her, and see if this was something workable. She and her husband, John, fell in love with Rosie and decided to adopt her. There was never any growling at people in this home, but it quickly became apparent that Rosie had no skills whatsoever around other animals. In fact, she was a little scary. Not to worry, they just wouldn’t let her around other animals. I got to spend time being really happy about “saving” another dog from those evil pound people who just wanted to kill her, and went about my merry way.
Fast forward to five years later. I’m in a different country and have learned a lot, been to many conferences, and worked with some of the best in the business. Over these years, judging by the sporadic contact I’ve had with them, my friends have put a lot of time and work into Miss Rosie. Hired trainers. Dog walkers. Tried various methods, from cookies to choking. Rosie was always a dream around the house but a nightmare when in prey drive, and no one, myself included, had the ultimate answer for that one, aside from management.
We know management always fails at some point. Here’s the email I got from John recently, shared with his permission:
Hi Trish,
Hope all’s well with you and with your pooches.
I thought you might appreciate knowing that Rosie is no longer with us. Having been through this kind of thing with Chinook, I think maybe you’d understand.
It wasn’t the two skunks or the flying crow she nabbed out of the air or the tail she bit off that squirrel. It wasn’t even the three cats of the same house she killed in our yard, the second one she slew in full view of our neighbours—the cat’s owners—from their balcony.
The last straw was when our dog walker was walking Rosie on her leash about five weeks ago along Nanaimo Street. A little cocker spaniel stuck its head out from under the gate and yapped at Rosie. Big mistake.
With lightning speed Rosie had the little dog by the head and yanked it out under the gate, tearing the gate off its hinges. By the end of it the little dog survived (thank God) and I had Rosie at the Granville Island vet for a date with the blue juice. Mindy was in Ontario for her grandfather’s funeral, so the task lay on me to find a good vet who’d do the task. A lot of places simply won’t euthanize a physically healthy animal.
I found a young, very compassionate vet at Granville who heard my long story of Rosie and read my letter from the trainer, Scott. Dr. Clancy agreed to do it. He was very impressed with Rosie. She was obviously very healthy, well trained, loving. When the moment came I told her it was alright (what a big lie!) and she gave me that trusting look. The doctor pushed in the plunger.
Rosie stood up, slipped off the table into the arms of Dr. Clancy, and by the time he placed her back on the table she was gone. It was as if someone passed a hand over my face and when done, Rosie was gone and another dog was lying there. A damn good-looking one, I might add, but it wasn’t Rosie.
Anyhow, we offered to pay the owner of the cocker half of his $550 vet bill. But, he’s feeling victimized so he rejected our offer of half, and he’s suing us for the full vet bill and gate repairs to the tune of $785.
Anyhow, we’ve done our social responsibility with reject pound dogs so we hope to get a puppy in an upcoming litter of Hungarian Viszlas, which are a rust-coloured, short-haired pointing dog. Good-looking, friendly, predictable. Oh, yeah. And expensive. [emphasis added since these people will never be interested in a pound dog again, it does not help the rescue effort to put dogs with problems in the community]
So, Trish, there you go. Such a sad tale. We loved that dog so much, but there was nothing we could do in the end to prevent this denouement. It’s a great relief actually, but it’s a little like losing a family member—well, nowhere near as bad, but sort of that way. I know you’ve been through this too.
John B.
I might add that over these five years my views on placing marginal dogs have changed—a lot. I’ve come a lot more in line with Sue Sternberg’s philosophy that shelters should be where people come to get the best dogs, not to become expert trainers or to have their bank accounts drained.
Look what I managed to accomplish by “saving” that one dog. John and Mindy have told me that they will never adopt a “reject pound dog” again. Do you think their neighbors will? Their family? Their coworkers, who have heard the Rosie stories all these years? How many shelter dogs will now die because I got greedy over one dog that I thought should be saved, in another city all those years ago? One Viszla breeder is happy with me; that’s all I’m sure of.
I’m facing this dilemma again with my current foster pup, who is very people-shy, has immune problems, and I just found out he has severe hip dysplasia. He is not a danger to society in any way, but do I dare send him out to become someone else’s “project”? If I do, will he be an advertisement or a deterrent for people thinking of adopting shelter dogs?
It’s humbling work, this.
This essay first appeared as a posting to Shelter Trainers, a Yahoo message board, and was reprinted in Sheltering Magazine with permission. As for John and his family, although they love their socialized and friendly Viszla, now a senior dog, they still miss Rosie and her endearing “confident sense of belonging in the family.” Trish’s foster pup improved with some work, was adopted, and lived 11 happy years.
Trish McMillan Loehr holds a Master’s degree in Animal Behavior and has been involved with animal sheltering for two decades. Trish now owns Loehr Animal Behavior in Weaverville NC, working with dogs, cats, and horses. www.loehranimalbehavior.com
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Did they try a muzzle for when not in the house?
Get serious? the comment by jane is so absurd and sad because that dog should never have been saved and put up for adoption. NOT all dogs can be saved for a varity of reasons!! AND then wonderfull dogs are put to sleep instead. Stop giving them human qualitys they don’t have. I am also a big supporter of the death penalty in people. the trainer ,the adopter, the people who lost their dog ALL were tramatized for no good reason other then no won wants to put a dog down?????????
Boy Deb, you are so so right. How many good dogs have to die because of all the compromised dogs are being “saved”. I wish people would start thinking with there heads and not their hearts all the time.
Went to a Sue Sternberg weekend many years ago with APDT and she opened my mind. Now do rescue but completely agree with this article.
Like a viszla is without a prey drive??? Lol. I venture to say the skunks, squirrels, birds & neighbors cats will not be any safer in that dog’s yard. Like anything else in life, there are no guarantees a person won’t be shelling out $$ for trainers or medical issues with a puppy. I call bullshit on this blog & the message that it sends about shelter dogs being reject dogs. Or this authors definition of what they consider “marginal” behavior. Or that statement “ we all know management ALWAYS fails at some point” Really? Based on what evidence. Yours? Not mine! This is the most disingenuous, misguided bog ever written by a “professional”. I call total bullshit. The author should get out of rescue if she thinks her friends did right by Rosie. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn they surrendered their viszla to the pound before age 3.
I agree that Rosie wasn’t marginal. She was way beyond marginal. And yes managing a vicious dog is a disaster waiting to happen. At some point someone comes through the door with their hands full and the dog slips out. Or a gate isn’t properly secured. Or the dog jumps digs out of the yard. Or as in my case some moron thinks it would be great to slip their large dog into my backyard to play with mine (not of my own breeding) who promptly killed theirs.
And if you buy a puppy from a reputable breeder, you will get a guarantee for heritable diseases and they will take back the puppy for any reason at any age. If you dump the dog later at a shelter, you will be in breach of contract.
A well breed viszla is hardly a murderous beast. Lol.
Putting unstable dogs into homes does nothing good for rescue. I have seen this play out over and over. Rescue hides or minimizes how serious the issue is to place it, new adopter realizes how serious the problem, rescue fails to support adopter in any way, or worse—blames adopter. Rescue refuses to take dog back because dog now has a bite history that the rescue should have know was coming based on the red flags dog showed while in their care but felt “saving them all” was more important than responsible rescue. The person now will never adopt from a rescue or shelter and will let others know.
There are way to many good, stable pet appropriate dogs out there to waste time and resources on bad ones. The bad irresponsible placement does far, far exceeds the good.
Management does not always fail. That’s a false, defeatist attitude (which I know some Veterinary Behaviorists would argue). It’s true that some dogs are too challenging or dangerous to be placed in most or any homes. But some with big issues are nonetheless manageable. In this case, sounds like a sloppy dog walker, knowing what this dog’s issues were. And I second Jane: why not try a muzzle when out? I’ve known sweet-as-can-be labs that are good with all dogs who will kill a cat or rodent if it enters their yard. That’s not exactly uncommon. I’ve also known the flip side to this story: plenty of “marginal” shelter dogs that found great homes, and turned out to he happy stories that made the owners and all their friends more apt to adopt from shelters. It’s irrational to avoid adopting out some dogs out of fear of some future reaction to shelter animals, when that future reaction could be amazingly positive. You can’t just think of some bad situations in making your decisions. Each case is of course different. I don’t think this is a good example for your argument.
She does not mean that management itself always fails. She meant that “stuff happens.” We are human and we make mistakes. And with a dangerous dog, there is no room for those.
An example of this–In my pack is an Akita/Husky mix who has a long history of being a runner. That’s probably how we wound up with him as we took him on as a stray (I searched for his former owners for a year before giving up). No matter how vigilant we were, he would slip out open doors at every opportunity and just–run. We’d catch up with him a few blocks from the house–caught him on the highway once. Occasionally, he’d tangle with other dogs, but for the most part–he just wanted to run. I’m an experienced owner and have rescued a fair number of dogs at this point. Among them were two runners. We were able to “fix” the behavior with both. Not with Arrow. We worked hard on recalls, used ecollars, invisible fences, etc. He ran through them all.
So we settled for managing him. We fenced in the front yard in his honor and rarely use the back door. This helps enormously, but he still slips through the gate once in a while (though he doesn’t run as far at age 11 and now largely just waits for us to come pick him up at the corner). All it takes is trying to carry something through the gate while he’s in the yard. Or a visitor not latching it.
We view him as manageable. And he’s not dangerous to anyone but himself. Had he been dangerous to other animals or humans. He would not be here.
And that is what this trainer meant. Not that it always fails–just that with a dangerous dog there no room for mistakes. And we are always going to make mistakes.
This story resounded with me. We adopted Smokey, a2+ year old Chesapeake Bay Retriever from the SPCA. We already had two elderly dogs that we took over when my husband’s mother passed away but we were looking for a younger dog to go walking with. He immediately loved me and I him but he was very territorial when the other dogs were around. I brought in a trainer and she also had her doubts. I should have listened to her…one day I came home to one of the elderly dogs terribly bitten. The vet said he tried to kill her. A week later the other dog died from heart problems. We took him back to the SPCA and they immediately put him down. To this day I think of him with sadness but realize his life early on was not good and his behavior would not change. Some dogs cannot be rehomed. I also went to breeders for our current two retrievers who I love dearly.
It is hard to put a dog down for temperament. This dog should not have been placed with people who could not handle her and didn’t understand this was a no walk dog. That being said, we don’t really know what an adopter’s skills are or even if they understand the seriousness of a dog with a high prey drive.
This is the most awful thing I have read ! But I am not surprised seeing the author;s name. every time she makes me feel so sad. Not so much for her ideas, as anyone is allowed to have personal opinions on euthanasia, but because she is teaching dog trainers and she is in the rescue world.
#Totally disappointed. Maybe reconsider places to work……
I am a veterinarian who once worked with a woman who had a rescued bull terrier. The rescue organization lied to her, saying that the dog was well-socialized. The dog was fine with the owner but tried to attack any other dogs she saw, to the point where the owner only took her out pre-dawn and late at night. She called me in to euthanize the dog after she worked with it for a year, with no help from the rescue organization. She said, “I had the window open, and the baby next door starting crying. The dog alerted to the sound and looked just like she did before trying to attack another dog. I couldn’t live with myself if my dog hurt a child.” I euthanized the dog and praised her for her sense of responsibility.
Seriously? My dog hated other dogs too, and we just did. not. let. him. around. other. dogs. Period. It is possible. You don’t bring him around other dogs. You walk him on leash. You take him to parks with fewer people and dogs. You leash them to a heavy piece of furniture before you bring in the groceries or take out the trash. You don’t stand with the door open. you pay attention and look to see where he is and train him to back away from the door before you open it. I had that dog for 15 years.
You nay sayers are all missing the point. These type of dogs are a major liability to society. The average family does not know how to deal with such dogs and neither should they have to or get into a situation where they are way over their head. There are plenty of good dogs out there that need a home. Why put society at risk like what happened here? It’s people 1st! And rescuers etc. need to have more accountability for the dogs they place in family homes without much experience. It just takes one accident, dog slipping his collar, getting out a gate, a child does the wrong thing and you have a disaster! This article is right on point!