BE for our rescue dog

[rund87]

We rescued our love mutt in January of 2020 when she was 6 months old. She will be 4 in July and we have had her for her whole life basically.

She was a great dog to begin with. She didn’t mind other animals coming over, loved people and didn’t mind others in our house.

Flash forward to the past 2 years….she has attacked 7 dogs (4 family dogs and 3 friends dogs) dogs she’s been around and played with before she just randomly attacked out of nowhere one day.
She has also bitten my brother in law to the point he had to have 2 visits to the ER to get the infection fixed and his finger fixed. She bit my husband randomly the other day which was out of the blue, she’s never been aggressive towards either of us.
She has also growled and nipped at our little nieces and my step-daughter.

We’ve talked to trainers and with her bite history and her aggression, spending the thousands of dollars for training would just get her to obey us, but she would have to be crated and muzzled.

We are trying to start a family and all of this is just building up as we think about our future.

We were suggested behavioral euthanasia because with her background, rescues and shelters will not take her nor do we want to put another family at risk of anything happening…

I’m just struggling to make this decision because I love her with every ounce of my body and she helped me through sooo much and gave me a reason to wake up on so many days, she saved me and now I’m doing this to her?

 

[countrygal65]

@rund87 There are some comments that are saying some pretty messed up things, but I need to point out that they are not in your shoes. They are not the ones in your home and considering starting a family. This is your choice and people who are saying you’re not doing enough need to try to work with some empathy.

 

[markbyrne24]

@countrygal65 Yeah, some of the comments are nuts. It's easy to say give an aggressive dog infinite chances when it's not their loved ones' lives at risk.

 

[niqq]

@countrygal65 Yes, and it’s important to remember that there is a subset of the animal rescue community who believe that every single animal can and should be saved, with infinite resources devoted to one creature. They will never accept that BE is very unfortunately sometimes necessary, and will always argue that something else could have been done. This is what leads to cats and small dogs being mauled to death, and other animals and humans being in danger from dog bites.

Anyway, OP, this is an incredibly hard decision, and you’ve done so much to try to help this dog. Please go easy on yourself and know that the comments saying you could do more aren’t living with what you are, and they are likely approaching this question in a totally different manner.

 

[idreamdaily]

@niqq Very well said. The judgey people making comments aren’t in this difficult situation. Sometimes the animal is just not wired right and nothing will help