Need a Hug - Big Dog is Being PTS

[lilwelshyrs]

Hi all,

I'll keep this brief.
My darling big dog is nervous/aggressive and has done the worst - bitten a dog, twice. Two separate incidents. First time we put it down to an unfortunate situation - she was with my dog walker and as she lunged at this dog, my dog walker misplaced her foot and slipped over. She bit a jack russel in the back leg. Thankfully the dog is OK and my dog walker's insurance is covering the vet bills.
We have never known her to want to make contact - it was very bizarre as usually she just tells other dogs to back away, but I think this jack russell was giving as good as she got!

We have since got her muzzled and over these past few weeks she's been fine until today. She flew at a dog outside my house. I was carrying an 8 month old baby and I'm currently 5 months pregnant. I ran to drag my dog off of the other dog (the owner of the other dog was also the mum of the 8 month old!) and in doing so I fell over. Thankfully landed on my knees and skinned them, baby and my baby stayed upright. My big dog wasn't relenting and the other dog's owner managed to lift her dog out of it.

My big dog is 9. Her aggression has gotten so much worse - I've never seen her like this before. We've only had her for 2 years and so her aggression was well set in place before we took her on. Nonetheless, we've had an amazing two years with her and have given her a fab time.
Even though she came from a household with a baby in, I feel her tolerance has lessened so much and I don't want to risk anything happening to my baby.

Feeling utterly heartbroken. She is lying on her big couch like nothing has ever happened.

What do we do with all her stuff? Hubby bought her massive bag of feed only the other day. Her food bowl, her harness, her lead, her muzzle.

Xxx

Oh I'm so sorry. I had to make a similar decision with my dog a few years back (although he was aggressive to people not dogs). He was a rescue and had lots of issues. I loved him and wanted to do right by him but I just could not have lived with the fact that I knew he was aggressive and gave him further opportunities to go for someone. It was a very sad situation and I really feel for you.

Oh I'm so so sorry. Was going to say she was being protective of you but saw she did it with the dog walker. Is that what the vet advises ?

On the stuff, the vet can doubtless find a refuge that would love it, if you dont want to keep for successor.

We could do loads of behaviour stuff with her, yes. But we simply dont have the funds. And there's still no gurantee that it'll be successful.

I think the fact she's gotten worse makes me think it's downhill from here. She might have been being protective, yes. But where do we draw the line? Who needs to get hurt or how badly does a dog need to ger hurt before we say enough is enough?

I am reluctant to rehome because i believe i'm just passing on a loaded gun and it's irresponsible of me to give her to someone else when her behaviour is deteriorating.

LaDeDa - it's so hard. They're such a big part of your life xx

Sending hugs . It's things like this which make me glad we don't live in the UK.

I have three dogs of very aggressive breeds (two Caucasian Ovcharkas, one Fila Brasiliero) they have all killed other dogs, but are the gentlest sweetest dogs with family. I'm not fussed that they've killed other dogs, if dogs come onto our property and start being threatening or attacking then I want my dogs to do something about it.

Aggression is a hard one to deal with, I trust our dogs as much as I would ever trust any dog, but in their case all of their aggression is to the ends of protecting us, I can run my hands all over any of them even when they're in full attack mode and all I'll get is a quick face nuzzle or lick from them before they're focussed again. If I didn't feel that I could do that, if I felt that their aggression was being directed to us instead then that would be it. Sorry, I'm rambling, but as someone with dogs with aggression I just wanted to offer some support.

You know your dog best, hope you're OK x.