Shelter Pets

[Anonymous]

15:25 again - Many shelters do a personality test on dogs before they will adopt them out. There are definitely individuals who they will not adopt to homes with small children, or with any children. However, diligence on the part of the future-owner is important as well.

[Anonymous]

Most good rescue organizations thouroughly vet their animals in foster care and expose them to children and intentionally put them in stressful situations in order to try to prompt a reaction that might instruct how the dog would interact with children. Obviously, supervision and care must be taken any time young children and animals are together, no matter how trusted the family pet may be (for the pet's sake as much as the child's). It sounds like you did the right thing, PP, once you saw a pattern of behavior and I hope your child is okay. It makes me so sad to hear when people make loving homes for animals and they or their kids suffer a bite. I do think this is something unusual, but obviously, sometimes things like this do happen. There are lots of layers in a good rescue organization, however, that will prevent it -- temperament training, and, like I said, in the words of one rescue organization that happily adopts out to families with children, they "mess with the dogs."

Just as a note of caution and to give the another perspective (and PP, I KNOW that you were smarter than this so please don't think I'm casting any doubts on your story), my parents bought a golden retriever puppy from a breeder. They met the mom and dad and felt it was a good dog, but the dog was showing some signs of aggression early on that my parents kind of ignored. The dog ended up biting one of my little brother's friends (again, in the face -- I guess it's at a dog's mouth level, but still, so scary). My parents told this story to so many people but they left one thing out -- they never had the dog neutered and this little girl was basically hurting the dog, had no supervision, etc. My brother said that the little girl in question stepped on the dog's balls and poked him in the eyes before the bite took place, but of course, he didn't want the dog to be put down so that theory has always been in question. And a bite was a bite, so this dog got put down. I was upset with my parents for months.

Again, PP does NOT sound like there was any fault of her own in this case, and sometimes good people do end up suffering from a dog's past life. But I just wanted to say that this is not the norm, you can be VERY careful about where you're adopting from, and there are ways to test a dog's temperament before you get it, and then by all means, spay or neuter the dog. Then be sure to train the dog carefully and supervise pet / child interaction. The reason I mentioned my parents is not to cast aspersions on PP personally but just to say that sometimes when you hear these shocking bite stories, it turns out that the owner's had more than a little bit of blame to share.


Still stand in favor of shelter pets -- my dog is fantastic around kids!!!!

[Anonymous]

15:30 -- PP here. I do not feel affronted or attacked by your post. In my heart of hearts, I know we did nothing wrong. Our guy was neutered and we watched them together all the time. It was laborious not being able to leave DC alone for a second, not even while I ran to the bathroom, but it was a labor of love. Ironically, it was in front of my dog-rescuing stepfather that the most aggressive behavior occurred, and it was he who convinced us that our guy needed to be relocated.

Everyone loved our guy, and constantly joked about kidnapping him from us, until he did what he did. We felt very fortunate that we found a family to take him and we provided them with full disclosure on his history.

My family was once bitten, twice shy (no pun intended) and we struggled going down the shelter route for a second time but we did try. We contacted many shelters and were told that we couldn't adopt because we had a toddler or because we didn't have a fenced in backyard. We were also adamant about getting a puppy and they were consistently hard to find.

And one last tidbit -- our girl isn't a pure breed... she is a mix of two breeds that are historically good family dogs.

[Anonymous]

To the PP interested in hypoallergenic dogs, there is a purebred adult toy poodle on the Montgomery County shelter website right now. His picture is super-cute!

http://www.mchumane.org/animalsinshelter.shtml

ID# A329315