My dog support program has started again, I got an application this morning, the first of the New Year (p.s. the price for a half hour is now $65, not $50.) This morning’s request always makes me think, can I help this person?
I love this program, I love helping people with dog issues, and I think I’m good at it. But I have no illusions about being all-knowing, dogs are complicated, and some are too complex for me. In the two months since the program was up, I haven’t yet encountered a situation I had to turn down. Sometimes alarm bells go off.
When that happens, I set up a consultation (no charge) to determine whether I can help. I won’t accept any payment if we decide I can’t.
The problem at the moment – kicking off the New Year – is an aggressive dog, which is the most serious of dog issues to me because it is the most dangerous.
When dogs used to bite people, the wife or husband would bring some brownies over to the victim, and all would be forgiven. James Thurber’s mother would bring over pastries and cake, and all was forgiven.
In our times, it is very different. If a dog harms or hurts another dog, or God forbid, another person, the response isn’t cookies. The police get involved, and so make animal officers, insurance companies, lawyers, and lots of money.
Lawyers are never slow to cash in on human troubles.
According to legal associations, dog bites cost dog owners between $30,000 to $50,000. If the injuries are serious (or a dog is killed), it can go much higher, and the dog owner can quickly end up in court. A level “4” dog bite, the most serious, can result in payments from $300,000 to $500,000. Home insurers pay out nearly a billion dollars a year for people with dogs that bite and often cancel policies as a result (making replacement insurance more expensive.)
It is also awful to have one’s dog bite a neighbor, harm another dog, or injure a child. The CDC says dog bites on children are epidemic, rising at more than 40 percent a year as more and more people bring home dogs they know nothing about.
This is no longer a rare occurrence as most people give little thought to the dog they adopt or what happened to it before they got it.
The person who contacted me this morning has a shelter dog that came recently. All she told me was that the dog is aggressive; details to come.
Dog behaviorists say fear is the biggest reason for dog aggression, but calming and easing fear is easiest to treat when we know what happened to cause the fear.
That is usually impossible with a rescue or shelter dog. Well-run shelters and responsible rescue groups test the dog thoroughly before turning it over to people, but it can also be risky and uncertain. Dogs behave in different ways in different circumstances.
I told the woman I couldn’t agree to help without talking to her (no charge), so we’re going to Zoom one evening this week. I have a lot of questions for her. From what she told me, I sense that the dog is nervous in her new home but shows no signs of severe aggression, just some hostility to other dogs.
Maybe there will be some clues as to what happened to the dog.
I’ll know more when I talk on Zoom. I got a photo of the dog. It looks like a sweetie.
I told her that she will have to decide if her dog is in the right home and place. If we agree that I can help, we can try my favorite thing, a calming dog program. She might need to consult a vet or an experienced professional dog trainer to help get the dog to a better place. She hasn’t responded to me yet.
If I don’t feel confident, I won’t accept the work. I’ve worked with aggressive dogs before and worked with trainers to help them. It’s tough work and utterly unpredictabl.
I know it can be done, but it takes a great deal of patience and commitment. If I feel uneasy about it, I’ll say no. I remember Orson, my very beloved border collie, who attached a child outside my farmhouse and caused severe bleeding from the neck.
I had him euthanized the next day. People still call me a monster for doing that, but I’ve never regretted it for one second. I don’t want to have a dog that will harm other dogs or people. That’s just me. Once I know that can happen, I don’t get anything for granted.
But I have helped a number of “aggressive” dogs calm down and lead safe and happy lives.
That will never happen again in my life with dogs, nor will I help enable this with any other dog. So I’ll be thoughtful and careful about this case.
I’m eager to work to help dogs and those who own them. You can check out my Dog Support Program here. We haven’t adjusted the application form yet, but the cost of a half-hour consultation is now $65. I hope to hear from people who need me and people I can help.
God bless you, Jon. I’ve had two rescue dogs with serious fear aggression problems, which only became evident after I brought them home. I tried hard to get help in handling them but should never have adopted them in the first place; I had children and did not have a fenced yard. Both dogs had suffered unknown serious traumas. One eventually had to be put down.
Rescue organizations ask you to return the dogs to them if necessary, but I knew both these dogs would both be adopted out again, and I feared someone would be harmed.
I believe that many rescue organizations, in the spirit of avoiding euthanization, are careless when they match dogs and adoptees. I will always be heartsick when I think how I failed these two dogs. Sometimes good intentions (and great effort) don’t work for some of us. Your writing about Orson gave me great reassurance.
Jon, I hope you will be able to help. I have been the PR Manager of a National RSPCA office in a previous life. My years in that position coincided with the influx of biting incidents and worse with bull terrier mixes. Sometimes called pit bulls. I found it really hard to tow the line between victims and owners of the dogs responsible for injuries. I have grown up with cats, only ever co-owned a dog with my first husband once. So I am inexperienced and very cautious. But I share your impression of people seemingly being walked in parks by very strong dogs, that scare me a bit. I am a very intuitive person and I have learned to take my gut feeling seriously when some dog makes me choose another side of the path. Most owners really mean well with their dogs, exceptions exist of course. On one of our local Facebook pages I sometimes read about complaints and I am horrified seeing the vitriol in the replies by dog owners. So, this is a topic that is felt with great passion and that makes it hard to talk about it with an open mind.
And an open mind is needed, for both sides of the fence. I remember one case in my PR work. A dog stayed with a friend during a 3 week vacation and ended up euthanised after a biting incident. The owner came back to the dog’s grave and was, understandably heartbroken and livid that he had not been contacted. He could not believe that his boxer had bitten a toddler in the face, the child of the friend who minded the dog. He went so far as to have the dog exhumed for examination. What they found was… a staple in the ear of the boxer. It all suddenly made sense. When a child, unknowingly and possibly unsupervised, in play, thinks it is fun to put a stapler to the dog’s head, guess what the dog does? It turns its head at the pain and bites. There is no guilty party here, not really. Could they have waited with the euthanasia? Maybe. It resulted in the end of a friendship between two people and an uproar in the RSPCA world, I can tell you that.
I hope that there will perhaps be a law that dictates that any first time dog owner must do some sort of training course with the new dog, before ownership is written over to the new person. I certainly would do that. We may be moving to a more rural area and sometimes I think that having a dog might help me feel safe. When that time comes, I will book a session with you to talk about breeds and that kind of stuff.
Good luck with the new case!
I so agree with your suggestion of a training course for first time dog owners. While I’m not a first time dog owner, I have learned the hard way in the best practices for owning a dog. For the last 25 years I’ve fostered, rescued, trapped, and transferred hundreds of cats and kittens and some dogs. And was only bitten in the last year by an old, scared and hurting lab mix. I volunteer now from a county shelter that was spilling over with animals until a “free” adoption was established and someone who paid the licensing fee for all the animals who were there as of that day. In theory it’s a good way to make room for more animals, but the vetting process is nonexistent due a lack of staff. It breaks my heart to think of these animals possibly going to people who can’t afford their care, or know what the animal might need. Fortunately it’s only for a few weeks, but it seems so irresponsible to me.
Anyone who read your book about Orson should never have questioned your judgement in what you had to do. I have never understood the vitriol you endured.
And this is my chance to say this was and is one of your best stories in my humble opinion.
My friend and neighbor inherited a dog that bites. I’m afraid if the dog, so I don’t want to go over. I told her this. I have dogs and have had animals my whole life. I know a dog that bites is an animal I don’t want to be around. This dog has bitten this neighbors grand daughter in the face, twice. I’m not going to say to her, what I could say. I’m also not going over. The look this dog gets in it’s eyes where it’s a bead on you and it doesn’t move, unnerves me, because I think, that dogs about to attack. It never ends good with a dog that bites.
Your book about Orson was a great comfort when we had to put our dog Ebon down . We got him from the shelter as a puppy and at our vet appointment the next day our vet found that his paws were in various stages of healing. Apparently someone had burned the pups paws. He took to our old dog Dotty and although was a bit shy seemed to develop okay. That is until 3 years later when Dotty died of old age. Jon, it was like Ebons soul was sucked out of him. He became aggressive and withdrawn. After working with our vet and X-rays of his skull it appeared he had also suffered blunt force trauma to his head as a puppy. We tried medication, positive re enforcement sessions with a trainer who worked with aggressive dogs and lots of love. In the end he was diagnosed with idiopathic rage syndrome and when he bit me trying to go after our granddaughter we decided with the help of our veterinarian to end his suffering. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.
I’m glad you’re going to work with the owner of the dog you wrote about. You have lots of knowledge and your sharing it will help so many dog owners!