For those new to the blog, my follow-up Friday provides me with an opportunity to update or revise a post from the previous week.
You know sometimes you post about something and you need an update but it doesn’t warrant a whole blog. Or sometimes someone made a comment that really resonated with you. Yup, Follow-Up Friday baby! 🙂
I really only want to follow-up with Justice For Putz.
People have different ideas about whether dogs are supposed to provide protection or not. Personally I don’t want my dog putting him/herself in harm’s way for me. My dogs are like my children and I would protect my children with my life. I try really hard to let my dogs know that I can take care of myself and in turn take care of them. That is the reason we train with other people and dogs as frequently as we can.
But I can’t get inside my dog’s mind to know what they are thinking and I can’t predict with 100% accuracy how my dog will react in any given situation. I’d like to think neither one of my dogs would EVER bite, but they are dogs and I don’t know. Which is why we take precautions with our dogs around other people, especially children. We also try and educate other people about how to treat our dogs.
I find it sad that because a dog bites, it is immediately the dog’s fault. My aunt and uncle had a dog once, Scooter who jumped their fence and bit a child. I don’t know all of the reasonings for their decision (if the law was involved or not) but they decided to euthanize Scooter. It broke my heart when I found out, because Scooter was a great dog.
After Scooter had been put down, my aunt and uncle found out that the child who had been bitten had been using a sling shot and shooting marbles at Scooter. One day Scooter had enough and stuck up for himself and he lost his life because of it.
Sadly Scooter and Putz aren’t the only stories about dog’s being wrongfully euthanized.
I wonder if Putz had been a Labrador or a different breed of dog if the outcome would have been the same? 2 Brown Dawgs left a comment about another pitbull who did nothing, and was still euthanized.
It concerns me, because right now the focus is on pitbulls, because a certain population of people have used the dogs wrongly. But that focus can change. When I was a kid I remember my father telling me how vicious Doberman Pinschers were, German Shepherds were also considered a “dangerous” breed, but we all know that isn’t the case.
We need to take action now and stop this breed specific crusade, because if we don’t we can’t be sure it won’t be our dog’s breed that’s next.
Book update, my book has 6,231 words.
Amen Jodi! Couldn’t have said it any better!!
Thanks Michelle!
I don’t think it is limited to just pitbulls. In the case of Putz and Ace, definitely was due to breed but I do not think it only happens to pitbulls. My sis has a rescue lab/shepard mix. One day out of the blue it lunged at a child as she was speaking to the mother (her friend) and bit the kid. Sis’s dog is a great dog and is not in the least aggressive. The injury was minor. Unfortunately the kid’s father is an attorney which meant that sis had to file a claim with her homeowner’s insurance which immediately dropped her (even though no money was actually paid out, it was the possibility and they have a zero tolerance). Now sis had to find a new insurance company. What if she couldn’t? Finding a rescue to take a dog with a bite history is like looking for a needle in a haystack due to liability concerns. Luckily she found new coverage, but if not, what would have been the fate of sis’s dog? And that is how it happens.
You just cannot be too careful in this day and age of lawyers looking to make a quick buck. However in the case of Putz, he was evaluated as aggressive and I do not think that can be totally discounted. Sometimes there are bad dogs that are not fit to be around people and imo rescues need to recognize deal with those cases too. Their failure to admit that these dogs exist hurts all dogs, especially the “aggressive” breeds.
Unfortunately most of the cases I hear about (at least in CT) involve pitbulls.
Not knowing your sis or her dog, I’m not sure I’m qualified to offer an opinion, but you know I will anyway. 🙂
When a dog is rescued we have no knowledge of their background, and even though the rescues do their best to temperment test, you can’t test a dog in any given situation. That being said, if the dog had been frightened in its previous life by a child and then this child made a similar move, it might have reminded the dog of something and perhaps the dog felt threatened. (Just a thought.)
In Putz’s case, the people who evaluated it found him to be guarding his cage, and not social with people, they based their opinion on the fact that a dog who had been taken from his home and placed in a shelter, didn’t respond to the vet’s touch. Personally I think it’s unrealistic to take a dog that has been traumatized in that fashion and expect it to react a certain way. Dogs are individuals just as people are and they don’t all respond the same way.
You do bring up a really good point about insurance though, all I can say is it’s a scary world out there and not just for people!
I always love when you comment Linda, because you have a very well phrased comment that challenges me and makes me think. 🙂
Sis got her dog as a puppy and it had no bad experiences with kids. The “incident” occurred when the dog was about 3 years old. My guess is the dog was reaching maturity and was guarding sis. I do fault sis for not having taught the dog that is not the dog’s job to guard and for not finding kids to socialize the dog with. But then the dog had never shown previous guarding tendencies, (but sis had always walked the dog with her older dog and this was one of the first occasions of being the only dog walked). Of course I told sis my opinion 🙂 and she did some retraining.
But any dog can bite so owner’s need to be vigilant.
You are such a good Dog Mom, Jodi! I have wondered if my dog would protect me if we were ever in any kind of threatening situation. Whereas you worry more about your dogs than yourself! I just hope that none of us ever get in any kind of situation where anyone needs protecting.
I like how you shared your story about Scooter. It’s those dogs that we get to know from our childhood that really make an impression on us, and pave the way for us to love and care for more dogs.
I can tell Scooter still has a very big part of your heart!
Awe Thanks Mary Ann, I know you area good mom too!
I hope we never get in that type of situation either. They trust us and they have no voice to speak for themselves. 🙁