Friday night, I got home from work & started my normal evening routine.
Then, I heard painful screams coming from my 20 month old son.
I heard “Lucy bite” & saw the blood streaming from his hand & dripping all over his sweater.
My furry friend bit my son.
This was the second time she had bit him.
She had also attacked a neighbor dog (innocent passer-by), just a week before.
I decided it was time.
Lucy had to be put down, Friday night.
I feel horrible.
I’m doing all I can to make it through teaching today, without bawling like a baby.
She was adopted from a rescue, so we aren’t 100% certain.
Initially, she was a stray in Kirksville, MO & rode the doggy freedom train to St. Paul, MN.
Vets figure she was roughly 5 yrs old.
We had her since mid 2009.
Yea…Coupled with the attacking of other dogs, I just didn’t see giving her away as an option.
If it was someone else’s kid, I know what the police would have done.
I would have tired to first find a non-children, country home for her. Only as a last resort would I have put her down. Not condemning what you did, it’s just what I would have done. Sorry for your loss.
I feel for ya man!!! As hard as it was you did the right thing IMO. I would feel very guilty if I had given a biter away only to find out another person or dog was bitten. Probably wasn’t her fault if you look back to her earlier years. Sadly abuse is more prevalent than we might think. RIP Lucy, I’ll hoist a pint to you tonight.
My guess is that abuse in the most formative stages of her life was part of the problem.
I think she learned behaviors that I was never able to train out of her, no matter how hard I tried.
Watching Cesar Millan taking biters into his pack and rehabilitating them was amazing. However (seems to me) he intimated that there were/are dogs he can’t reach.
Sorry to read that Kit, no doubt a staggering day on a couple levels. I hope your son heals and recovers quickly and is able to appreciate the good in dogs later in life.
In my 11 years as a veterinarian, I have seen this many times, unfortunately. In my experience, even with behavioral modification, there is always concern that it could happen again. I know it must have been difficult, but you did the right thing in protecting your son. It is a heartbreaking situation and I feel for you. Hope your son is doing well.
This is such a hard thing to do. I have been struggling to find a way to encourage you to make sure your son understands how to behave with dogs but I see that you don’t need to hear that. I am so sorry that you had to make that choice and I hope that your son recovers well and learns to love and respect our long time partners in the years to come. I rescued a large powerful pitbull mix who had been seriously abused his whole life and I worried alot about this issue with him as my sister was still a baby at the time. I got lucky and he turned out to be one of the best dogs in the world around children. He wouild get into fights with other dogs at times although I never saw him start it and he would stop on my command even if it meant he got hurt but I can imagine how hard it would have been had he been a different dog. I wish we could go out and find the people that did this to these dogs and put them down. It seems like a so much more just solution.
