My dog has bitten my toddler - new home needed urgently or PTS within 2 weeks

[lil88]

P is a former rescue lurcher dog is 7 years old and has been with us for over 3 years and been in and out of foster homes before we had her. It was not until we had her for a few months that we found out one of the reasons she was given up for fostering was because she has bitten a toddler climbing into her bed. She also has nervous aggression with other dogs which was only apparent after a few months with us and still suffers from separation anxiety. To cut a long story short, My husband and I were fortunate to have a baby nearly 18 months after we had homed P. With a young baby to cope with we knew it would be difficult to give P the attention she needed and also we had some concerns about the risk of P biting the baby at some stage and therefore had her up for rehoming at EXXX where she came from. However we have not had any one interested and despite our attempts to enquire with other rehoming centres, we have drawn a blank as they have either told us, to return her to EXXX, she was a difficult dog to rehome, or they had a long waiting list. Further EXXX has not come up with an appropriate foster home for her nor will take P back. Our baby is now a 23 months old strong minded child and she and P always compete for our attention. Indeed our LO can be rough with P who has generally responded with baring her teeth at our LO or run away from her. We have tried to tell our LO to be gentle with P otherwise she would be bitten but she does not listen. Things came to a head on Sunday, when my LO was bitten on the wrist by P after when our LO had patted her quite strongly and lost her balance and fell on P. This took place at the doorway of my kitchen. This incident has not fazed our LO and I only fear that matters will escalate. I am afraid that our LO's safety is our priorty and although P is not to blame for the incident due to the nature of our LO, we can not risk any future incidents which could end up with a worse result for my LO. We have decided that if P can not be taken in by one of the dog charities, we will arrange for her to be put to sleep in 2 weeks time. So can anyone provide a kennel or foster home or home P. We are based in Worcestershire.
This has also been posted in Lurcherlink appeals for help

and it isnt an anonymous forum. anyone can read our posts and its frighteningly easy to figure out who people are.

She contacted the rescue and discussed the OP's business with them - she made the link. What business is it of hers anyway? Is she the doggy police?

This is why ordinary dog owners rarely post on the Doghouse - it's insane on this part of the board.

"If a child crawled into a dog's bed and the dog snapped, it would not be the fault of the dog"

OK, so it is now ok to have something so dangerous near a baby? I personally always thought that a good dog could be trusted not to snap, but if that isn't the case...

Do you all have open fires that your baby could climb into, but it is ok because you are always there, so it would never happen? Or do you put a guard round/block the fire in? Or do you "teach the child to respect" the fire, so that a toddler will magically never do anything daft?

To me, if a dog is to be near a baby, it needs to be amazingly kind and gentle. I have known dogs like that. If they are not 100% reliable for those times when the baby does act like a baby, then they don't get anywhere near the child.

DH has a bit of a temper, but when DD2 headbutted him during a tantrum and made his nose bleed, he swore under his breath but didn't hurt DD2. It is ridiculous that I even need to point that out - if he was the type of person to hurt her, even a little bit, you would all applaud me in chucking him out. But a baby over enthusiastically pats a dog, falls on it (all standard toddler things) and the dog bites, that is fine?

Missbehiving, do you know what Rescue the OP was denigrating?

MissBeehiving, the OP needed help finding the dog a home, and Scuttle is one of those wonderful people who can help with that kind of thing.

Blimey, I go for a quiet evening doing some sewing and come back to find I'm a "stalker", "insane" and all sorts of things.

A couple of points. The OP was making a specific, RL appeal for help - Take my dog or it dies; not a general discussion about manshapes, fake tans or anything else. Any answers on this thread should be seen very much in that context - the whole point of the post was for a RL resolution by the dog being rehomed, and for that to happen, at some point the OP would need to "out" herself to somebody. Also, in her OP, the poster gave details of her county, the initials of the rescue and a link to another website where she had posted information about the dog and her attempts to rehome it. The OP has outed the rescue in this post - I haven't.

It is disingenuous to say that as the OP has not named the rescue directly here on MN, but only on LL that their identity is secret. If I were to refer frequently to my blog "Scuttlebutter and the Greyhounds of Doom.blogspot.com" I think it would be fair to say I was outing myself even if the blog is a seperate website.

In her second post, the OP again discussed at length (17.19 on Weds 6 June) her posting on LL (which details the rescue concerned).

I have only made three posts on this entire thread. In the first, I was extremely polite and offered practical help including contact details for several rescues that specialise in sighthounds. I also invited the OP to PM me if she needed any further help. As many people in the Doghouse know, I volunteer for a number of sighthound charities.

During the thread, the specific rescue involved has been criticised by a number of posters and rescues in general have come in for a great deal of stick. I was extremely concerned about this case since the rescue concerned is a highly reputable one, and the people who run it are experienced professionals. I sought (and received) some clarification on the case from the rescue concerned. Without naming it or the OP, I then put a second, short and polite post up identifying that I was willing to act as a go between if any of the posters who had expressed their concerns so vocally had any questions or required any clarification. Such questions need not have been about the specific details of this particular case, but could for instance have been about the rescue's homecheck policies for instance or their stance on PTS - all issues that had come up for discussion on the thread.

Unlike some posters, at no point have I been rude to the OP or personally abusive to anyone else. I have not personally identified her, and neither have I directly identified the rescue concerned. All I have done is offer (politely and genuinely) to help prevent the unnecessary death of a lurcher and to volunteer my services if information about the rescue was needed.

heroutdoors ever considered that a bad owner makes for a bad dog, more often than not??

You go, scuttle. Your behaviour has been nothing but measures and reasonable.

scuttle thanks for coming back and clarifying. I was on thread earlier when it all got rather nasty and unhelpful to OP. I wrongly assumed that the post re rescue centre contact was in direct relation to all of that. I'm sorry that I said that it was stalkerish as how you have explained it does make sense. I also was in aware of her posting history (actually I don't tend to be aware of anyone's)

Thank you Mama

Fair enough, Scuttle .

hello people im in need of advice and pointing in the ryte direction and course of action my friends toddler jumped on her dog and it bit him, the dog has never shown any agreshion 2 him be for and they have always been fine together, she does not want 2 risk any chance of this happening again so has made the desishion the dog has 2 go but does not know where she can take it, unfortunitly the dog doesnt get on with other dogs very well have never attacked another dog but just keeps her self 2 her self, does any one know of any re homing centers for dogs in this situation??? any help or advise would be graetly apresheated. thank you

Why does your dog have to be PTS? It sounds like your toddler is the problem. Wouldn't it make more sense to find a new home for the child? After all the dog was there first. Or isn't the dog considered to be part of the family now the brat has made an entrance? I fucking hate people who take on a dog and then allow them to be put to sleep for nothing they have done. Grrrr!!!!

IloveAntbuthateDec - the thread is nearly four years old , and the dog was successfully re homed at the time

86adampeters - you'll get more responses if you start your own thread. There are lots of people on here who are involved with rescues who should be able to help you.

I never leave my dog with the kids (3 and 6) alone. Not even just to go for a wee upstairs. He is put back n the kitchen behind the stair gate. My 3 year old cannot be trusted not to poke him in the eye or worse. He has snapped at her twice - both 100% her fault (and mine by default) becauSe she hurt him being too rough. I fully expected to have to do this before we got the dog - the strict separation procedures