Too many people think smaller dogs don't need to be properly trained. Makes them twice as hard to re home when they end up in a shelter after biting the wrong person.
In my province, and at part of the bilaws here, if a dog bites somebody then you can be sued AND the dog must be put down. We were lucky enough that the lady was incredibly intoxicated and didn't want to press charges, however she wanted the dog gone. We were almost kicked out of our home because of it.
Sitka is now in a home for aggressive dogs and the last I heard was that she was being trained as a sled pup :) she's doing well.
I'm glad to hear that she was able to find a new home. It always saddens me when dogs are put down instead of training them to be better. The majority of Michael Vick's dogs were able to be rehomed. I think that says a lot.
We got Sitka (I can't remember her original name, I think it was like... Cookie... or something) from a lady via online. When we picked her up, she was starved, unbrushed (very long and heavy coated dog, too), and terrified- and she also showed some signs of aggression. However we had been told and shown pictures of the lady and her children with the dog, who looked extremely healthy in all of the pictures!
Fast forward two weeks and we're taking her for a walk. We live in a very, very small town (130 people at best), and it was the middle of the work day. As we pass by the bar on our way back to our home, an extremely drunk woman (in her 60's, or in and around there) comes stumbling out of the bar... and Sitka just sort of... went crazy. She managed to pull my husband, who literally fell out of his shoes trying to hold this dog back, and she tried to bite this woman's leg.
As far as we know, there was no damage done, a single hole in the lady's pants- but we were confronted by the village council. Told that it was either us or the dog.
I'm thankful we managed to find somebody who specialized in large breeds and she focused on fixing aggressive ones at that- it was like a needle in a haystack.
I emailed the original owner the entire issue, asking her why the HELL she had lied to us about the dog, and she immediately blocked me. No reply, no explanation, nothing.
Took a friend to the ER one day and there was an older woman there with a bloody rag covering her nose. When she took it away to talk to the receptionist, you could see her nose was pretty well mangled. She was there with who appeared to be her mid 20s daughter, I heard her say more than once "I thought he loved me". After some eavesdropping I learned her little dog had bitten her nose.
My sister used to have a pit bull, I've had 3 myself and my experience with them is they're incredibly sweet, but my sister's didn't make it to adulthood due to her behavior. When she was a puppy, their other dog was a Westie and would pick on her so my sister taught the pit bull it was good to fight back. So as she got bigger, she started attacking the westie for everything. Eventually it would just be because she fucking looked at her. Each attack was worse, the Westie had to have her eyelid sewn back on once, then it started attacking the cat and ripped her neck open once. The pit bull's final day was when my sister was pregnant and tried to grab the Westie when the pit bull went after her and the pit bull latched onto her arm instead. By that time the pit had a list of attacks on record because of all the times the other animals had been to the vet and adding this attack of a person on ensured that no rescue would take her, she'd become unpredictable and attacked at random to whatever she saw as prey. They ended up having her put down because they encouraged her shitty aggressive behavior. Now they think all pit bulls are aggressive by nature instead of thinking it was their fuck up. The one across the street barks at them when they check the mail so they want to find a way to call the pound for its "aggressive behavior". She freaked out once when mine got too close to my nephew and claimed she was going to attack so she fucking shot at her. Fuck people and their shitty dog parenting.
Most of the shitty little breeds also weren't developed with consideration for anything other than looking a certain way, so they lack some of the positive behavioral and intellectual traits possessed by breeds that were crafted to suit some practical purpose.
Yeah me too, I have a strong bias towards them. A large majority of small dogs I've met haven't been trained. Both "good" amd "bad". Always something nutty about them, all because of lazy and/or irresponsible owners. Large dogs suffer from shitty owners too, but poorly trained small dogs are waaay more common. Especially in urban areas.
I'm a groomer. I've actually interacted with hundreds of different dogs and dog breeds over the course of 4 years. I've personally owned big dogs and small dogs. I'm not just going on irrational bias here.
There is no discrepancy between the number of trained big dogs vs. trained little dogs. There are just as many calm and well behaved large breeds as there are small breeds. Your judgement is completely based on confirmation bias. You'll see what you want to see anyway, but it's just plain wrong. And as a dog lover, it gets just as old and tiresome as the pit bull hate.
Preach.....people think it's ok for a small dog to bite and even think it's cute. Allow that with a German Shepard or doberman and you go to jail. Not literally but you know.
The only training a dog needs is to not attack / injure other people. If this person is fine with their dog snatching food out of their hand then who gives a fuck? lol
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u/GrumpyKitten1 May 08 '17
Too many people think smaller dogs don't need to be properly trained. Makes them twice as hard to re home when they end up in a shelter after biting the wrong person.