When I got home tonight, there were several news trucks parked outside one of the neighboring buildings. It’s cold, so I didn’t go and ask what was going on and instead figured I’d watch it on the news.
Well, I just saw the news. And this is what’s happened.
This is just horrifying.
I’ve seen this dog around, and I can’t say that I know anything about the dog’s temperament, because I’m not permitted by my own dog to get anywhere near other dogs. But I had to put my last dog down because she bit me badly, in the face, when I discovered in quite the wrong way that she was an object guarder.
A lot of people were very angry with me for putting her down, including the dogwalker I used at the time, who called me up and screamed at me for being so irresponsible, said she’d have taken the dog, she couldn’t believe I would kill my own dog, etc., etc.
Mind you, this was a woman who was so stoned half the time that she couldn’t close the baby gate I used to keep the dog in the kitchen. You know, the kind where you just raise and lower the bar to get it to open and close.
But one thing I knew: I was not going to pass along a serious aggression problem to anyone else, particularly when it came in the package of a cute, friendly and seemingly happy-go-lucky dog. And I also knew this woman was not equipped to handle this dog’s issues (not that it turned out that I was, either, but she didn’t live with the problems and the constant challenges for domination).
And one of the scenarios I feared was that the dog would go to a family with children because she seemed playful and cute, and that the kids would get hurt when they tried to take something from the dog. Or even got too close when she had something — which is where I ran afoul of her. I’d never noticed this behavior because I’d never tried to take anything from her; everything was an exchange. But the dog trainer I consulted after I was bitten asked me a few questions that threw everything into sharp relief: Had I noticed the dog freezing when I passed by while she was chewing something or eating? Did she ever growl at me? Was the skin broken? On one side of the bite, or both? (Yes, yes, yes, and both). Answer: she was an object guarder, the signs were there all along but I didn’t see them, and the severity of the bite meant that she meant to hurt me.
I’ve got no idea what happened with this dog, but the grandmother, who was babysitting, likely didn’t see the signs because while this was a trusted family pet, she probably wasn’t that familiar with it. Could be the parents didn’t see them, either, if they weren’t looking. But now they’ll probably have someone ask them a few questions, like the dog trainer did me, and all those little things that seemed a little odd at the time but were dismissed will start to fall into place, and they’ll wonder how they could ever have missed it. And they’ll tear themselves up about it, with grief and guilt.
One of the people interviewed on the news tonight was my former dogwalker, who lives in that building. I couldn’t hear what she was saying because my cable signal is breaking up pretty badly, but it opened a few old wounds to see her talking about something like this. I suppose it’s too much to hope that maybe now she realizes that this is exactly the kind of thing I was trying to avoid by having my dog put down after remedial training failed to address her aggression.
I’ve heard that part of the problem with dogs and babies is that a dog is wired to put their jaws around the puppy, and close gently, then with increasing force, and that the puppy is wired to quiet down with that treatment. A baby is wired to scream louder, and the dog increases pressure to quiet it, and it just makes the baby scream louder, which makes the dog increase pressure, until the final result is a dead baby.
I feel so sorry for the family, and also for the dog.
I can’t think of another way to put this, but there are some people who personalize their dogs too much. Often, they tend to think that they’re “experts,” but they do a lot of anthropomorphizing of their animals and, yes, end up missing a lot of danger signs until someone gets hurt.
It’s unfortunate, but there are some animals that are a danger to the other animals around them — including humans — and sometimes they have to be humanely put down. It sucks, but there’s no other way short of creating doggie prisons where they can all live in solitary confinement, which would be much more cruel to a pack animal like a dog.
Oh, my first graf is referring to people like your former dog walker, not you, zuzu. Just in case that wasn’t clear.
Yeah, there’s an awful lot of sentimentality regarding dogs. I’ve noticed it a lot at the park, especially with people who have aggressive or out-of-control dogs. They don’t want to take responsibility for what their dogs do to other dogs because they don’t want to think that their dog, who is in some way an extension of themselves, is a problem. Or that they themselves are doing something wrong.
Which is exactly what the owners of the dog who bit Junebug last year did when they tried to blame her for the attack and get out of paying me for the vet bill. They so wanted to believe not that their dog was aggressive (even though they knew full well that he had Serious Issues with other dogs) but that Junebug had somehow provoked the attack by seeking attention from one of that dog’s owners that they were actually yelling at *me* for not controlling Junebug. I consider it a victory that I got even half the cost of the $300 vet bill out of them.
And I find it really amazing the lengths people will go to to excuse actual aggression and biting in a dog, without ever actually doing anything about the behavior. Maybe it’s just because I know what a closeup view of the inside of a dog’s mouth looks like (and could have lost an eye in that attack), but I will not put up with that shit, ever.
Also — in a more detailed story about the mauling, it appears that this was a dog that the parents had had for seven years, since puppyhood, and that the baby was on a blanket at the time of the attack and had touched the dog’s paw.
I’ve noticed that problem with sentimentality, too. Our former neighbor’s dog attacked our dog while she (our dog) was on leash. He just refused to a) admit his dog had done a thing wrong, because he was a dog “expert” (expert meaning he self-published a terrible book of poetry about dogs), and b) keep his dogs on leashes even after this happened.
Luckily no one (our dog, his dog, my bf who was holding the leash) was hurt. But it could have been a much different story.
Some people are insane regarding their dogs. Some friends of my parents had a Rottweiler (nice dog), a neighbor’s Golden Retriever crashed through their plate glass window and into their living room to attack the Rottweiler. The retriever’s owners insisted that their dog was not at fault and that the Rottweiler must have done something to provoke the attack. Because “Everybody knows that Goldens are sweet dogs, but you can’t trust Rottweilers.”
Wow. What a terrible story.
Not ever having owned a dog, I feel like kind of a goob asking this, but: Is there any way to tell whether a dog is an object guarder like that before you adopt it? Or is this a trait that remains dormant for years and suddenly shows up out of the blue?
It is possible, but it’s not an exact science. A person trained in dog behavior can identify the indicators of object guarding, and I know that there are shelters in which someone so trained is on the staff to help screen dogs for this.
Object guarding is a learned behavior, so dogs that engage in it have likely displayed indications of object guarding for a long time, but as zuzu suggests, it’s easy to miss these because the indicators often look like other behaviors. For example, some dogs who guard objects play a form of “keep away” at an early age, in which they’ll bring an object to you, then run away and hide it, then bring it back to repeat the cycle. This looks like the dog is playing a game, and so the behavior gets reinforced, but when the dog reaches adulthood, this is very dangerous. So aggressive behavior that appears to come out of nowhere has actually been hinted at for sometime, but the elements of the scenario that lead the dog to attack haven’t combined until that incident in which the dog shows his or her aggression.
Object guarding can be extinguished through operant conditioning, but it takes a lot of effort and should be done by/in consultation with an expert in dog training. Some dogs do have to be euthanized regardless; I certainly wouldn’t blame someone for doing so once the dog has bitten someone, though it’s sad because the dog is only doing what it has learned to do.
One of the most depressing advice columns I ever read was a letter written by a woman who kept arguing with her fiance over his dog. The fiance absolutely refused to get rid of the dog, even after it bit the woman on the face, requiring 14 stitches.
I’m sorry, but you really don’t see any problem with your dog sending someone to the emergency room? Especially someone you’re planning to marry? Talk about sentimentalizing your animal too much …
Full disclosure: I’ve never been bitten by a dog, but I was bitten by my brother’s cat. That was in part my own fault, though — he did give me a warning bite (hard, but didn’t break the skin) and I reacted badly, so I got a worse bite. Infection-wise, a cat bite is actually worse than a dog bite, so I was on a triple antibiotic for a few weeks. Ugh.
Luckily, my familiy’s never had problems with aggressive dogs, but we did have a springer spaniel who we could never quite get full control of. She was fairly sweet natured, but would go off with a couple of neighbourhood dogs & worry sheep. The pack killed 1 or 2 one night (expensive pure-bred Merino sheep, only the best, naturally!), then a few days later the farmer discovered our dog by herself, with a fresh leg of mutton in her mouth. Thinking she’d done a good thing, she just went trotting up to him & showed it off. When the police called, my parents just said “Shoot her. She’s too much trouble”. We then had to pay for the sheep.
Spaniels are mighty silly dogs. Characters, but silly.
I do remember my parents taking me aside in the street one day when i was 5 & telling me to never pat an unknown dog, because I wouldn’t know how it would react to a stranger. Since all my friends & extended family had dogs, I just thought every dog was my instant friend.
There have been some pretty horrendous dog maulings in the last year here in NZ. Last year a Staffy-cross jumped a gate, went into a local park & attacked a 2 year old. The owners understood about the dog being put down, but said it had never shown aggressive tendencies before, and had played well with children for many years. Plus their property was well fenced, so they felt OK about leaving it alone in the yard all day. Yes, it was well fenced (~2m high in most places), but the crucial bit was the lower gate the dog got over (~1.2m). A dad in the park had to jump on the dog & pry the jaws open to get the girl loose. The girl & her 2 siblings were in the park alone, because Grandma had said “Yes, we’ll go to the park. Wait until I get my coat & bag”, and the oldest had taken this to mean “Go on ahead & I’ll meet you there when I’m ready”. So Grandma is frantically looking for the kids, goes to the park to see if they went on ahead without her & finds her granddaughter in an ambulance. Talk about a bad day.
Or there’s my dad’s dog (put down when I was 4): friends are visiting with their kids, youngest 2. Adults hear a low growling coming from under the dining table, look down to find dog backing into a corner & toddler crawling forward with 2 fingers pointing straight at dog’s eyes. Now, we’re pretty sure Ruth was a lucky girl to be trying that with a dog with the temprement & training to warn before attacking, but that incident’s always been at the forefront of my mind when thinking of kids and the unpredictability of pets.
I had a wonderful lab when my oldest was born–she was 5 when he came home,and was very gentle. She had always had full access to the house, but a few months before the baby came home, I started gating her in the kitchen when she ate, and sometimes gating her downstairs. I also put a gate on the baby’s room. She didn’t like it but eventually adjusted. I did this before baby came home so she wouldn’t associate it as some punishment brought on by the new arrival. We allowed the dog to sniff and lick the baby when we were in close contact, but if the baby was on the floor, the dog was in the kitchen. If I had to take a shower or go to the bathroom, the baby went in the crib and the dog went outside or to the kitchen. Creating these boundaries kept everyone safe and happy.
I agree that too many people treat their dogs like “kids” and forget about their animal instincts and just assume they can mix with kids without any problems. I think so many dogs are just set up to fail by their owners, and sometimes, like this, to a horrible outcome.
In the same vein, mixing older children (especially toddlers/preschoolers) with infants can also be catastrophic–they don’t know how much harm they can cause and sometimes are jealous of the infant who is probably receiving a lot of attention. Lots and lots of supervision required in that situation.
Yeah, I seem to remember hearing a story about you and Mike giggling madly while swinging my cradle higher and higher.