The Truth About Dog Bites

Last week, I met with a lovely woman who was very worried about the 8 month old dog that her family had rescued 3 weeks ago.  They had been encouraged to adopt this 45 lb, mixed breed dog from a local rescue who stated the dog would be great with kids.  These folks have had dogs before and were specifically looking for a family dog.  Again, they were told this was the dog for them.  Within hours of taking the dog home, the dog was leaping at faces and snapping.  The dog was lunging at her children and grabbing them through their clothing.  The dog never made a sound, just darted and grabbed.  When they contacted the rescue, they were told by their "animal behaviorist" that the dog needed time to adjust and they just needed to be firm with the dog, set boundaries, make sure she got enough exercise, and nap time. They did all of this and the dog bit each of them and then a worker on their property. They didn't want to be quitters, but knew this just didn't seem right.  When they took the dog to the vet, the dog was perfectly calm and quiet in the exam room.  When the vet walked in, the dog glanced her way and then jumped up and leaped for her face/neck snapping, no warning, no sounds at all.  That's when I entered the picture.

We talked about all of this and then I asked the owner to open her laundry room door and let the dog out so I could meet her.  The dog took one look and ran at me, jumped up and snapped at my face, managing to grab my vest.  I blocked the dog and tried to defuse the situation, but the dog wasn't having any of that. She charged me again, grabbing my pants leg.  I shook her off and again tried to redirect her.  She ran at me one more time, this time getting my leg through my jeans.  This all happened in about a minute an a half. I had the owner coax the dog back into the laundry room and we were done.  Wow.  This dog was scary.  No warnings.  No hesitation.  She just went right for the bite.

Needless to say, I told the owner this dog needed to go back to the rescue immediately before one of her children or one of their friends was injured.  If this is how this dog is behaving during the honeymoon period of adoption, I can only imagine what will happen once that period is over. Not surprisingly, the rescue tried to lay blame on the owners, but I had coached them on how to respond to that kind of nonsense.  I had them use the legal term scienter with respect to them having knowledge that they owned an aggressive animal.  I had them mention liability and future bite risk.  Any dog who has bitten has a better than 90% chance of biting again.  This dog is 100% going to bite again.  The rescue has a copy of my report and all the details from the owners laid out in a letter.  Nonetheless, they asked the owners to state on the return form that the dog "just didn't work out for them/had adjustment issues."  This really upset me because that's a cop out.  If they place this dog again, she will bite again and as far as I'm concerned, the rescue is to blame when that happens.  They have all the info they need to make the right choice. The humane choice.  The safe choice.  This dog needs to be euthanized.

I am most certainly not an advocate of euthanasia as a solution for behavior problems, but dogs that bite people are dangerous, particularly in homes with young children. It will take some time for this family to move past this less than favorable experience and begin the process of finding their next dog. We've already talked about what to look for and I am happy to help them find just the right family dog. In the meantime, it's going to be a while before I forget the look on that dog's face as she charged me.  No fear.  No hesitation.  Just a lot of focus, confidence, and control.  The bruise on my leg still hurts, but the teeth marks are fading and changing color.  These outward marks will be gone in a few days, but the impression of this dog will last me a lot longer and will be difficult to forget.