kittyasauras wrote:I'm falling apart right now.
My dog is a master escape artist and she broke her chain and then proceeded to climb the fence/tree/however she gets out. I haven't seen her since Monday, we have been looking everywhere.
Last night my other dog attack my cat and killed her...terribly. During all of this one of my other cats disappeared. I don't know if he was a victim of this attack also, or if he escaped. I'm going to search again outside in daylight in the trees and bushes. I don't know what I'm going to do if I find him out there too.
So now I'm faced with what to do with the dog that killed my cat (and possibly the other too). Do I take her back to the shelter (we got her 5 years ago)? Do I just hope she doesn't do it again? What if she does do it again, or worse attack my son?
I'm shaking so bad, crying. I can't sleep at all. I went to bed after 5am and woke up before 10am. After loosing Spudd this year my heart cannot take all of this (I wouldn't be able to take it anyway). I'm not religious at all, and last night I prayed. I just...I can't take all this.
I am so so sorry. Both for the loss of your kitty in a horrible way and also because now you are faced with a difficult decision.
People say "dogs raised with love and affection will not become aggressive." Most of the time this is true, sadly, not always. Some dogs have this weird genetic switch that goes off and they literally go out of their minds with aggression.
We had two dogs- both very sweet and completely non-aggressive. In fact, one of them (a lab/golden retriever mix) was so mellow you could literally pull her ears or tail, stand on her, etc. and all she would do is wag her tail. We got another puppy, a male. He was very handsome, sweet and affectionate with us, and really smart. My youngest daughter was only about 8 at the time. He used to get a little aggressive with her, but we thought it was just "puppy behavior". One time at the vet, he did something and the vet tech smacked him and yelled "NO! DON'T DO THAT" at him, and told me to not let him get away with that because it was aggressive. All of my dogs (and cats) were neutered or spayed as early as possible, so they had all been fixed.
I didn't really worry about it much. He would kind of chase the other dogs away from the food dish, even though they were older and bigger than he was. Then one day when he was 8 months old, for some unknown reason he WENT OFF on one of the other dogs. He grabbed her by the throat and would not let go. I yelled, hit, kicked him, and sprayed him with the hose. He would not let go. My husband heard the yelling and came running. He also could not get him to turn the other dog loose. My husband is 6'2" tall and weighs over 230 pounds, and it is pretty much solid muscle. He had to punch the dog in the face twice, full strength, before the dog would let go. Our other dog ran under the deck to hide. The dog who had attacked (Max) pulled out of my husband's grasp, ran after her, and bit her around the neck again. He was determined to kill her. This was a dog he had been raised with since he was a puppy.
My husband caught him again and put the leash on him and tied him up around the back, away from the other dogs. Max stood there shivering. Gone was the aggressive monster and in his place was the loving, affectionate dog who was now completely upset and scared because he didn't know what had happened.
We immediately took him to the vet. We had two children here, and many kids visiting all the time. We simply could not take the risk of having a dog that might attack a child. Children have been KILLED by dogs- it happens far too often.
We asked the vet what to do. We asked if he would outgrow it, because he was only 8 months old. The vet told us that they get more aggressive as they get older.
We asked if we should try to find him a home out on a ranch somewhere. The vet said that he would be tied up and become more and more aggressive. He also said, "next time it might not be another dog. It might be a child, and you can't take that chance."
He told us, "The right decision is the hard one...." Meaning, he would leave it up to us, but his firm recommendation is that the dog be put to sleep. So we did. It was very hard to do- he was a beautiful, smart and loving dog, but he had a switch that went off in his head under certain circumstances and an evil monster would take over his body. He was completely out of control- it was not something the dog could help, but nor was it something he could stop.
From then on, whenever I hear that "with dogs it is nurture over nature, and how a dog acts is a reflection of how it is raised. A dog who is raised with love and affection will not be aggressive.." Sadly, that just is not so. There are unfortunately some dogs who just have inherited a bad gene. Max was raised with the same love and affection as our other dogs. We never hit our dogs, don't really yell at them, etc. So he should have been as sweet and non-aggressive as our other dogs. But he wasn't.
I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you that once a dog has a taste for killing, it is almost impossible to stop them. As tragic as it was for you to loose your own cat this way- imagine if it had been a neighbor's cat. Or worse yet- what if one of these days your dog goes after a toddler?
Good luck- I've been where you are and it's very hard, but we are convinced that while it was very sad, we did the right thing by having the dog put down.
i feel lucky i noticed it was starting when i did x.x
