I'm still reeling with the grief and guilt from rehoming our first ever dog. Do you think it's ever possible to get another one? Is there a breed/personality out there for every owner, or are some people just not dog people?
We got our first ever dog as an 8 week old puppy. We read pretty much every book going in advance and we attended puppy classes from the get go. The puppy bit us from day one but we accepted this (and trained hard) as that's what puppies do isn't it? We followed the advice to the letter from small group and one-one trainers but the biting never seemed to stop. We worked so hard on training for 13 more months and we had a practically perfect dog in terms of recall, toileting, sitting and waiting. But for some reason she continued to bite us on walks, either off lead or on lead. She was a big 40kg dog and I was covered in bites. We followed the advice of two behaviourists and in the end the vet said it was too dangerous for me to walk her. She bit my children too and we were terrified it was a ticking time bomb before she bit a member of the public.
We contacted a breed specific rescue who said they would train her from their home. They said it's such a difficult breed but she was the most difficult they ever met. She kept attacking their other dogs and they said they couldn't cope with her any more but they found a lovely older couple who had no children and no other dogs and lots of experience with her breed and she seems to be happy with them.
I'm so happy she's OK but I feel traumatised from the bites and grief that I've lost my baby. I've got a big dog shaped hole that I'd love to fill and so much love and energy to give to another dog.
Do you think it was a one off awful experience? I don't think I'll ever get over losing her. Everyone I knew told me it wasn't safe to keep her but I don't know if the guilt will ever go. Has anyone ever been through this and gone on to get another dog?
Thank you for any support.