<title>By: not that girl</title>
<link>http://www.metafilter.com/140968/The-State-of-the-American-Dog#5640714</link>
<description><em>Great Pyrenees, Irish Wolfhounds, Komondors, Newfoundlands, Napoleon Mastiffs, Bloodhounds - don't seem to be on the list. All of them big, strong animals, and the Great Pyrenees is a proven bear-killer.</em>
A good friend of mine used to have Great Pyrenees dogs. She and her partner made the difficult decision to have one of their dogs euthanized after a number of biting incidents. They felt that they'd been lucky their dog hadn't done permanent damage to anyone, or severely hurt a child, and decided they weren't comfortable taking that chance. They researched every option, including sending the dog for intensive training, trying to get him a spot at a rescue place, a ranch out west, that specialized in aggressive dogs, and so on.
One option that was suggested to them was that the dog be muzzled when other people were around. But they felt that any option that depended on confining him or muzzling him was prone to human error, and that human error always occurs.
That was actually my thought reading the article. The dog in the article, Dexter, had pretty seriously injured two other dogs in the space of just a few months. The author attributed it to human error, and it was human error in both cases: a cocker spaniel getting accidentally let loose, his wife not recognizing the risk of letting the dog to up onto a porch where there was another dog (and not listening to the daughter, who told her it was a bad idea).
The trouble is, that if there's room for error, error will happen. We had a husky mix for many years. If she got loose, she would just run happily around the neighborhood until she was ready to come back. We developed a whole repertoire of tricks for getting her to return, and some of them worked sometimes, but mostly the best strategy was just to sit on the porch, catching occasional glimpses of her in the distance, and wait for her to wear herself out and come home. When we were new to our current neighborhood, she got loose, and a neighbor, not recognizing her, called Animal Control. The Animal Control guy couldn't catch her. He eventually gave us a verbal warning and left, taking my word for it that she'd never done any harm and would eventually come back.
Uncatchable even by Animal Control. That was our dog Kira.
The solution to that problem, of course, was to be very careful to make sure she didn't get loose. And we were very careful. We went months, even a year or two at a time, without her slipping out. But all it takes is one person coming to the house who doesn't know not to open the door when she's loose in the living room for her to be gone in a flash. It was a friend's 3-year-old who opened the door and let her slip out when we'd first moved here. Or a utility company meter reader who leaves the gate open, and we either forget to double-check it or don't even know the meter reader was here, until we let the dog into the backyard and two minutes later see her streaking off down the street.
My point is, that one thing I was expecting from the end of the article, after his talk about human error, was to hear him be somewhat conflicted about his dog. Because human error will always happen. Our friends who put down their Great Pyrenees felt sure that someday the dog's muzzle would get left off, or someone would accidentally make a gesture the dog found threatening, and that would be it. In the last incident before they made the decision to euthanize, the dog bit someone's hand severely, and her doctors said she was lucky there hadn't been permanent damage. Our friends thought to themselves, "Next time, there might be." They didn't want to be responsible for someone losing the use of their hand, even partially.
I know the point has been made up-thread, but I think it's important to keep in mind not only how often dogs will bite or be aggressive, but how much damage they can do. I'm not painting pit bulls with a broad brush here: I'm specifically talking about the dog in the article, who has twice injured smaller dogs and bitten the humans who tried to separate them. In one of those incidents, Dexter was the aggressor.
I don't have a problem with pit bulls. But I don't trust this Dexter. I'm not sure Dexter is fit to be a family pet, and, remembering my friends, I wonder if the author and his wife are going to wait until their daughter has seen her dog kill another dog before they consider that possibility as well.</description>
<guid isPermaLink="false">comment:www.metafilter.com,2014:site.140968-5640714</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 15 Jul 2014 23:06:09 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>not that girl</dc:creator>