For a very good guide to all sorts of dog training processes and dog behavior challenges, I use and recommend Clickertraining ...that link goes to the description of this terrific ebook you download immediately, wherever you are! -- Rosana

I’m writing this with a heavy heart, because this morning a friend took a dog to be euthanized for behavioral reasons. I know my friend well, and she knows a huge amount about dogs and dog training. I have seen her with her dogs and with mine. When our Rottweiler Lola was a bit timid around her on first meeting, she didn’t hesitate to get right down on the floor and coax Lola gently with some treats. It worked like a charm.

The dog that my friend couldn’t keep was also a Rottweiler, also a female, but getting up in years. My friend had fostered this dog for several weeks, when euthanasia was the only other choice (due to changed circumstances of the dog’s previous owners and a failed placement with someone else), and she had worked with her and with her own three large dogs.

It simply didn’t work out. There had been several fights between the guest and one of my friend’s other dogs, a female Boxer. My friend and her husband saw that the boxer seemed to be very jealous and aggressive toward other female dogs, which they hadn’t really noticed as it had been minimal with their other female dog. They also saw more and more that the old dog, who had never been socialized with other dogs and was an only dog in her first home, was very inappropriate with their dogs causing a lot of the problems herself. For example, instead of sniffing butts she would approach the other dogs head on; my friend’s dogs clearly didn’t care for that behavior. All this provides a very good reason to socialize your only dog with other dogs.

They tried keeping the newcomer separated from the other dog and the cats, but everyone’s quality of life suffered. It was not always possible to keep the dogs apart, and the results were several hundred dollars’ worth of veterinary bills for the old Rottie. Partly because this dog had threatened the woman in the previous placement, my friend deemed the dog unadoptable (also because of age, health and lack of socialization), and made the sad but I think correct choice to euthanize her. Local shelters had already indicated they too thought she was unadoptable.

I told my friend I was writing this and she said, “I think it needs to be clear that with a younger, healthier dog every effort should be made to place the dog and not euthanize. We could have placed this one in a single-dog situation if she had been younger. She really wasn’t aggressive. I want the article to reflect that she wasn’t aggressive but was old and poorly socialized. Also placement of a big dog needs to be with a person confident with big dogs, which that first foster person was not.”

Okay, why am I telling you this sad tale? This is not exactly a fun training tip.

Because I think we all need to be open to the occasional times when the best choice really is euthanasia. Some risks are not worth taking, some compromises are too limiting. I hope you never need to use this tip, but do file it away in the back of your mind just in case. Especially if children are involved! (They were not in this case.)

I don’t know if my friend believes in the Rainbow Bridge (you can look up the phrase in Google if you aren’t familiar with it), but I believe that when this woman eventually crosses that bridge, the dog she tried her best with will be among the most enthusiastic greeters she will meet.

[tags]euthanasia[/tags]

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