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I am concerned here .. this is a thing rarely seen in rescue but it does happen .. what went wrong, did the rescue fail this dog and the new owner or was this some kinda rage thing on the dogs part? .. I am sad as well .. the bulldog is usually one of the sweetest dogs and most loving .. so this is hard to understand .. They say the dog will be euthed which is acceptable in this case but I am trying to figure out the why of the attack and wonder if there was anyway to prevent or screen for this outa the blue sort of attack .. Here You read and look closley at what happened AFTER the attack ..
YES its gruesome in case your wondering if you should read it .. no pictures but the visual idea is bad.. This happened close to me and I am wondering could we as fosters or rescusers have done more to prevent this ?
It was an American bulldog (bigger and stronger than an Old English bulldog which I first thought it was). I don't know as anything can be done to prevent things like this - maybe the dog (not sure of its age) had a tumor or a medical condition (ear infection, if the owner touched the ear alth. the reaction seems very extreme) that may have precipitated the attack - ? Curious how long the dog was fostered by the rescue, am sure he was vetted and evaluated as far as temperment etc. In light of the attack, I'm sure they'll be evaluating the dog, behaviorly and medically, to rule different things out (alth. the end results will be the same, his being PTS). What a shame but it could happen with any dog, one you buy as a young puppy or one you adopt from a rescue. I hope the man recovers, sounds like he has a long road ahead of him.
Last edited by Honeycrisp; 11-02-2009 at 07:15 AM..
I don't think so, faworki1947. I doubt there are always these glaring signs that rescuers ignore, nor do I think Mr. Stewart did anything wrong necessarily. I have the same questions as Honeycrisp. Sadly, we will just never know exactly what happened, unless the victim recovers his memory.
I love dogs to pieces, but I would never completely trust them. Ever. Even now (occasionally), after some nearly fourteen years with my puppers, if I step too close to him while he is eating, his whole body stiffens. What makes that occasional time different then the hundreds of other times I've walked close to him when he's eating? In my mind, nothing. In his mind, everything.
Who knows why. As Honeycrisp said, it could happen with any dog.
I had a foster come to me because the woman had three dogs and blamed this one for being a vicious dog and that it attacked another one, she was about the size and a mixed golden. The dog came to my house for 2 weeks and there were 6 other dogs here and not one incident. She was respectful and playful and quiet and they have a dog door they go in and out of with little to no supervision because I can hear everything going on in the back yard. After I took her for a termperance test and with my own evaluation we had no problem adopting her out. Then she attacked the new owner's little dog (one of three). I felt horrid about it. But our intake coordinator said she thought it was a fight over a bone and the lady wasn't watching them - it still didn't sit well with me. She'd shown no signs of that when she was here.
In another instance I had a foster here, a jack russell, which was as sweet as pie, maybe 1 year old, and my dogs LOVE them and play and run around the house and chase and play...one of my dogs lays on the floor and let's them jump all over her. But there was one that I had that wanted to play so badly and kept pushing on my min pin and doing the puppy crouch in front of him and barking and the min pin just sat there like 'get off me' and would not respond. I called the adoptions coordinator and mentioned that I didn't think my dogs liked this dog and it was soooooo weird. I'd had 100s of dogs through here by then.
So, after about a week, they were all out barking at the yorkie next door through the fence so I went out to get them all in and there was the little jack russell laying there dead. One of my dogs, and I think it was a combination of the two, had killed her by grabbing and chomping into her neck. The other foster dog was absolutely fine and running around with them and they all acted like nothing happened. Why that particular dog? No one knows and they never did it again. It could have been smell or something - no one knows and I think I've only taken in 3 dogs in a year since that happened because now I'm scared to death.
So, yeah, it can happen with any dog unexpectedly.
It really bothered me .. I had read about "rage syndrome" in springers and know that that breed seems prone to it so I avoid that breed when fostering.. I prefer the bully & mosslers breeds because I have had them as pets and love the look and the manners .. American bull dogs are on my prefered foster list as well.. so this dogs actions were a shocker ..
Unfortinally the vet that will do the euth will not do a necroscopy on the dog to see if there was a reason for the attack the dog will pay a terrible price of course for something that no one saw coming but what if there was something.. could it be added to the many tests we do to check these dogs out befor we rehome? ..:: sighs:: my heart hurts for the man and for Igor, I can only shake my head and wonder if rehomeing was the best thing .. I have no problem with euthing a dog .. if there is signs of instable behaviors, or rage .. I just wonder if the signs were there befor he was placed and no one was willing to tell on him ..
I have had a few that I would return and recomend a euth for because they were past help .. and I have seen some places that just couldnt seem to do what needed to be done because every dog deserves a home thinking .. Yes there are bad dogs .. many folks dont admit it tho .. and thats where sometimes we are wrong ..
That is only a few miles from me and they said his girlfriend went and immediately got the dog which was ok to her.. it was like a Jeckle and Hyde thing.
i think that for reasons none of us will ever understand, every now and again, a dog, or a human, just "snaps" for lack of a better term ....... makes big headlines because it is such a rarity...... no way to predict it.... no way to anticipate it........
It's so scary and it's difficult to read a dog without really getting to know him. Maybe it was a situation where the dog had learned (through poor training by a previous owner) to supress his bite warning behavior and go right for the bite. Without having any knowledge of the dog's history, it's hard to say. I think the only thing anyone can do is monitor your dog/s closely and seek out training when necessary.
As an owner of a big dog that could do serious damage if he wanted to, the idea that a dog can just "snap" scares the crap out of me. I always try to find some sort of explanation, and in my experience I can usually find one.
I adopted a 4-year-old Springer from a family, turned out to have the rage syndrome, and was very dangerous to me and had to be put down. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed it.
I adopt older dogs from bad backgrounds. One who had been feral and had always been terribly shy and fine with dogs, after 1 1/2 years and a change in my dog group, became obsesses with stalking one peaceful little senior and attacking him out of the blue. After too long, I had to send her back. She never did anything like that before or since with multiple dogs in home and sanctuary settings.
I did trust the two dogs I got at six weeks and had 11-13 years, because I think I really knew their movements and certainly their experiences. Still, they are animals, and I think it is wise to always remember that.
I've had several adoptions of older rescue dogs over the years. None has "snapped" except the Springer, and it was not like anything you'd ever expect. It was more seizure-like than behavioral, a fatal inbred flaw. I've never seen anything like it before or since and no one I know has seen it, either.
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Aggression
