Breaking points

[sblmnldrknss]

What is your breaking point on getting rid of a pet? Dog? Cat? Are they different? I don't mean moving or allergies, but I mean animal behaviors.

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Comments

[giveitfullheart]

I'd be really hard pressed to rehome any of our dogs. If you're so uncomfortable that you have to keep her crated, I'd say rehome her. Even if I personally wouldn't rehome in your situation, I think it's far worse keeping a dog you're uncomfortable with. That's just setting the dog up for failure, ya know? I hope you can find a home for her where she can overcome her issues!

[sblmnldrknss]

I feel like certain people read this situation and see me as bailing. Have I paid the Dog Whisperer tens of thousands of dollars to deal with her? No. But I went way beyond obedience classes at Petsmart, too. She manifested issues a year ago, and I did not bail on her. I tried what I could, and I tried a lot! And in talking to other people, I know we did more than what most people would be willing to do. But at the point that I feel having her around the other members of the family is dangerous, that's it.

[giveitfullheart]

I didn't mean that you're bailing on her at all. I'm just saying I personally wouldn't (for reasons that have nothing to do with the amount of effort you put into training). I completely agree you should rehome her if you're so nervous about her behavior that you're keeping her crated. You should find a family that maybe doesn't have children or other pets to worry about. I didn't mean my comment as a stab at you at all. I don't think you should have her put down though because there are people who will take that dog in. You just have to find the right people who can put more time into it and not have to worry about the dog being aggressive towards kids or other animals. That's not saying you haven't put plenty of time into her, I'm just saying that with all the extra worries you have, even if you keep her and go through extensive behavior training, you'll be afraid so she'll be crated and being crated all the time will not help her at all. I don't think you're a bad pet owner. She had issues when you got her and they got

[sblmnldrknss]

Oh, I didn't mean you so much as other people in this community.... and elsewhere.
I get what you're saying, and I appreciate it. I'm not generally fearful of dogs, and I'm not even specifically afraid of Ellie. And I know that 99.9% of the time she's great, but it's that other time....
I don't know if she IS rehomeable, which is why I'm hoping one of these rescues will respond to me in some helpful way. The one local to me is trying to talk me out of giving her up, and that's pissing me off, cause their logic is lousy and it's really making me doubt them as an organization.

[erica057]

I wouldn't.

[originalwacky]

I'm reading this late, so you may have made your choice already and such... but have you called the rescue you got her from? If you had a way to get her there, would they take her back again? If so, why not attempt to arrange a transport for her?

I'm having some issues with one of my dogs too (you can read about it in dogsintraining if you look there), but we're actually getting closer to being able to work with her and keep her at this point. Of course, I don't have little kids to worry about, and it's never been aggression towards humans at all.

[sblmnldrknss]

I actually ended up having a long conversation with the director of the rescue. She's the one who actually had Ellie at the ranch and the one we spoke with when we adopted her.
She frankly said that if we were located close to them and they did take her back, they would euthanize her, and that her recommendation to us was to have her humanely euthanized. They consider her to be unadoptable based on her history. She apologized for how things played out and said we gave Ellie far more chance than most people do, and that we were correct in our assessment that she couldn't be in our family anymore.

[originalwacky]

It is a very rough choice, but often it's much better if you can take her in and give her snuggles and kisses before humanely euthanizing her. *hugs* No matter how it happens, it's tough to lose a pet.

[sblmnldrknss]

The more I talked with her(and some others) the clearer it is to me that her previous owners probably got rid of her for the same reasons. And because they weren't honest about it and didn't handle things right, we ended up in this situation, and now our family is affected by it.
We don't like the way this is playing out, and I much better like the idea of just dropping her off and saying 'we can't keep her anymore,' but I hate that something bad could happen to someone else, or at the very least, that another family could end up in our position again.