The courage to change the things I can...

and the wisdom to know the difference.

 Quote: Michele McAtee

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Amen and Rodger That!!!!

i am going through that right now.

not all aggression issues are training issues. Sometimes, and because of bybers, many times, you get a dog that has bad genes, you can't love and train that away.
You can control it-maybe for a while.

I could never ever allow brooklyn to see another dog,cat,small animal and child for the rest of her life, sure. But that would be no life for her, and not fair to me either. She can be the best trained dog there is-obeying commands like a robot-but because of her bad breeding, she will always be unpredictable. She is unstable. So she is being put down now, for her, and for all the dogs she would have bitten.

assuming everything about the dogs biology is normal-and the parents are also balanced-then yes-aggression becomes a training issue. Dogs that are left tied out with no interaction, no training, or bad training, that can be helped, and should be before euthanization is considered.

but sadly, more and more dogs are being turned out by horrid breeders from sickly parents, and you just can't fix that.

Mallory, my heart goes out to you, what a tough decision to make.

yeah, i wasn't trying to steal the thread-i wrote one about brooke being pts.
i am trying to help ppl see that so much depends on breeding, not just training.

some of my "dog owning friends" i.e people who just have pet dogs who are pretty ill behaved themselves are making me feel like it's my fault brooklyn was like this becaus ei had been working with her, and if i were good at training, she wouldn't be aggressive, and bart wouldn't be aggressive, and i know that's just not true.

brooklyn is aggressive because of bad genetics, bart is aggressive because he got beat up so much as a pup-neither because of anything i did as an owner.

Mallory I am with Marj on this one...how awful for you, and you are in my thoughts. In this situation for me the dog in question has no issues with other dogs or people and older kids, I speculate it is the height of the child that may be the dogs trigger. Smaller people, thus small children, it shows aggression to. It seems to fit a pack order issue, I am no expert...you would think a serious evaluation would be in order before a final trip to the vet. Just because it is PB it does not magically make it human passive to all people, and despite what some want to believe it never was that way. Some dogs are just social climbers I suspect and in need of a very strong and fair leader. You would think one would want to know this before declaring the dog to be a "throw away".

for a dog that is just dog aggressive, or just small animal/cat aggressive, you can work with that. But when it is all of those, plus aggressive towards children-i am not willing to risk that.

plus, brooke is not even a pit, not even a pit mix-she is american bulldog/staffy....there should not even be dog aggression with these two breeds.

believe me-i have been struggling with the do i give her yet another chance to hurt someone, or "throw her away" before she does....

again, if it's definately bad genetics, i think being pts is in the dogs and owners best interest, you can't really fix that. If it's just enviornment/training, i would exhaust all other options before having the dog out down.

on top of brookes genetics, she was severly abused/neglected for 3.5 months. I am still amazed and thankful that sonny is so balanced, and that abbi was too(sister that died at 12 weeks). But i know that their dad, Capone is a great dog. The mom was questionable....

My heart goes out to you, Mallory. It sounds like you've tried really hard. I've read the other thread is well and understand how difficult it must have been to make the decision.

I think the training issue vs genetics argument is brought up a lot because MANY people have seen dogs ruined by inept handlers, but not too many have seen a dog with a genetically intractable temperament. It's a whole different animal. All of the logic and careful handling, all of the consistency in the world is not going to fix a congenitally bad temperament. Sometimes improvements can be made, sometimes the aggression isn't so over the top that it can't be managed. Often though, these dogs are so mentally not 'dog like' in their thought processes that they just don't respond like a 'normal' dog would. It's like trying to explain something to a severely mentally ill person with violent tendencies...it just doesn't work. It doesn't mean the person who tried didn't do a good enough job, just that the job may not have been doable. It sad to see an animal like this and it's fortunately pretty rare, but it DOES happen. Then the owner is left with the difficult choice that Mallory has had to make. I think the pts option should always be the utmost, last resort after everything else has been tried. Sometimes, though, it really is the only option.

Well it looks like I was able to strike a blow for rational thinking. The dog was taken to the vet and low and behold diagnosed as having Hypothyroidism and is now on daily medication. Now can this condition affect the dogs temperment????? Anyone have experience with this?