PTS - for or against?

So what then? What do you recommend to a person then who just cannot find a way to rehabilitate their animal? Keep it and put themselves or others at further risk? Send it to a no-kill shelter where it will live a life of torment by isolation? What do you recommend to the shelter? That they should take the risk and adopt out this dangerous dog? And if you are so against euthanasia (and again, I respect that you are, but there needs to be a back-up plan if it's not PTS animal), where do we house the millions of dogs we are no longer euthanizing? Where does the money come from to care for them? Where do we get the room to house them all?

all of these questions bear repeating.
they are exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to answer.

it's all to easy to target peopel and tell them they need to be proactive with their dogs from day 1. CM et. al. is trying to do that through their books, shows, whatever.... but still, the percentage of people who know who these people are, let along, their messages is way way up there.

as it now stands, the shelters are full and unfortunately, dogs that can not be placed get put down.

there are too many puppy mills and there are also too many irresponsible people - but that's just all to easy to point fingers - as if pointing fingers is going to change anything at all.

You own your opinion.  No one is taking that away from you.  But when you sound your opinion publicly to a real situation when the option is already known that is just being cruel in my opinion.

Just as it is my opinion now that there are no more southern gentlemen left.  Maybe that should have been kept quiet. 

Spiritdogs, a true lady when it comes to these matters, said in the illness thread “She needs your comfort and your permission to decide when it's time.” My permission, I own the decision.

You do own the decision, but it's more than that.  You own the responsibility of the decision, and Callie said it better than anyone regarding the situation of a dog that is in extreme distress, which comes in many forms.

I would like more shelters to implement behavior programs, give dogs more time, adopt some of the procedures that made San Francisco SPCA and Tomkins County so successful in raising their adoption numbers and reducing euthanasia.  But, even Nathan Winograd (you may want to read his new book about the no kill movement - "Redemption") admits that there are some dogs that are too dangerous to perpetrate on the public. 
I do think that he has a somewhat unrealistic attitude about just how many animals can be saved, but many of the procedures and policies that he speaks about are worthwhile in trying to make a dent in the mess. 
I do think that we often have a hard time letting go of a beloved heart dog, and we need to make sure that we are not causing suffering, rather than extending a life that still has some quality.  
I think that we should always be doing whatever we can to prevent euthanasia.  Aside from my donations and volunteerism, I like to think that, as a trainer, I do my share to prevent dogs from acquiring behavior problems that put them in jeopardy for relinquishment to shelters. 

What if a dog has bitten a human once or even twice?

In my opinion, any dog that has a severe bite history should be put to sleep.

Reasons:

1.  Liability.  If a dog has a bite history that includes a severe bite on a human, the owner's liability goes way up.  Most people are not prepared to accept that liability, plain and simple.  Those that claim to be prepared are most likely minimizing what true management of the situation entails, or have absolutely no idea what it means-other than a higher insurance premium.

2.  Predictability.  If a dog has bitten a human in a severe way, that dog has shown that it cannot be trusted.  Therefore the dog is not reliable in the myriad of situations that it might face in the course of a normal day.


I'm sure someone will post on this thread that "no dog is beyond rehabilitation" and that those of us that feel that "killing" a dog for biting is wrong.  It is much more wrong, IMO, to eliminate the risk that an aggressive dog, with a severe bite history will not hurt another human.  I think of it this way: if a dog were to bite my child severely, without provocation, would I expect that dog to attack again?  What would I want done?

(This is very apropos right now, as my neighbor was attacked by a feral cat that she had been taking care of.  She and her dog were attacked, she had a gigantic hunk taken out of her arm and started on rabies shots.  The cat was trapped and PTS this morning.)

Should I have PTS when I found out about the cancer. Should I have PTS when I learned of the treatment. Should I have PTS when I learned the costs. Should I have PTS when I ran out of vacation time to take the trip to the vet hospital downstate.

Having been in situations like yours not once but several times, I can only offer this.

My family has made the decision several times to PTS animals with terminal illness.  Bone cancer in shepherds, a rare brain fungus in a GSD, bloat and torsion in our akita, and a nasopharyngeal tumor in a pekingnese.  Never did we take those decisions lightly, nor did we withhold care or medical attention.  Never. 

We waited for two things, the first being quality of life.  Does my companion still greet the morning with a tail wagging?  Is he eating and drinking?  Do his eyes still sparkle when he gazes at his favorite things? 

We also waited for "the sign."  Most people say that dogs have no concept of death-that they don't think about it.  I disagree.  I think that they know when to say goodbye.  And say it they do.  Spartacus, my GSD with the brain fungus knew.  He knew he was ready to go.  He said goodbye to us all the night before, dragging himself from room to room until the last one of us was asleep.  Something he hadn't done before. 

I apologize for derailing the thread and becoming emotional about this, he was my heart-dog and I miss everything about him.  I just wanted you to know that I believe that you will know when it is time.

I would put a dog to sleep in these circumstances:

1.  The dog is terminally ill and is in pain or has a condition that is now causing the dog to become fearful or aggressive (ie, a dog with severe hip dysplasia might yowl and bite a small child that presses on his back end).

2.  The dog has done an unprovoked attack - not just bit, but attacked - a human being in a way that it was obvious the dog intended to maime or kill.  If I walk by someone's house and their dog comes barreling onto the sidewalk, knocks me over and rips my scalp off in one bite, that's an attack.  If I'm at a friend's house and I go up to their sleeping dog that I've never met before, put my face in his face, reach over his head, and he wakes up and gives me a little nip on the hand, that's not an attack.

3.  The dog has behavior and temperament problems so severe that only qualified behaviorist is fit to work with the dog, but the dog has been abandoned in a shelter and the likelihood of such a person being available is slim to none.  The dog's quality of life is in jeopardy just as much if not moreso than a nice tempered dog with a severe physical condition.  Leaving the dog in the shelter kennel will worsen the quality of life and the behavioral problems of the dog.  By behavioral problems, I mean things like repeated bites of humans or other dogs, extreme aggression or guarding tendencies, a dog that is so submissive and withdrawn the stress of being in a shelter is causing the dog to collapse mentally and physically, etc.

I think this is a thread that most all of us will react emotionally to.  I think it is also a subject that is pretty well impossible not to answer from your own frame of reference, and in honesty that 'frame of reference' -- altho crystal clear to the teller, might not be understandable by "most folks".
 
Really GOOD example is the little dog *I* was thinking of when I wrote the above.  When it comes to my *own* dogs, dogs I've lived with and loved - the 'line' of when it becomes necessary to euthanize and let them cross the Bridge -- may be harder and more heartwrenching to deal with , but in another sense it's more clear simply because I know what "joy" and "quality of life" really ARE to that dog.
 
I only fostered Taffy.  Known by all who knew her as "Psycho Dog".  A small some kind of poodle/tzu/something/whatever mix.  She'd been born with what I was told was a "club paw" -- think of a front 'elbow' that didn't bend from a 'back' joint but rather looked more like a flipper so the paw raised to the side rather from the ground to the chin -- and the joint could bear no weight.  She was also blind in the eye on the same side of the body (I always suspected birth trauma). 
 
When I fostered her she wasn't 'elderly' -- probably only 6 or 8.  But she was the most tortured soul I've ever known in dog-dom.  She'd at some time been bitterly teased by children approaching her blind/handicapped side to 'startle' her.
 
She was incapable of allowing touch for any reason.  She never bit me simply because I was quick - but you couldn't pick her up or move her in any way, you couldn't touch her to trim her nails or to give her a treat.  She just wouldn't allow it.  She didn't just bark or snarl -- she'd literally scream endlessly for about 10 minutes if anyone challenged her by trying to touch her.
 
But what really spoke to me about this dog's inner turmoil was the fact that she had nightmares almost every night.  She'd wake up screaming -- literally this horrific wake-the-dead-make-your-hair-stand-on-end scream.  Sometimes more than once at night.  Sleep was no respite for her.  It was as if she was ushered into a world worse than Freddy Kreuger could imagine. 
 
I fostered her for several weeks (and it almost tore my family up - none of us got sleep, including the dogs).  But I honestly couldn't bear to see her absolutely with no joy in her life - awake nor sleeping.
 
I argued bitterly with the woman I worked rescue with -- she was content to just let Taffy live her life out on the floor of the kitchen "you get used to the screaming after a while".  I thought it was patently cruel.  This dog was tortured constantly -- and not by anyone nor anything -- but her own mind had been so damaged that she wasn't capable of any joy and took comfort in literally no thing at all. 
 
My point is this.  If anyone is looking for concrete answers in this thread - you won't find any satisfactory ones.  Because I think with something this serious it merits individual decisions.  Input from others?  It's a good thing.  We may not all agree -- but sometimes, just some few times, it's good to challenge our own thots.
 
the good thing, I think, is that altho there may not be across-the-board agreement here, the one thing we CAN all agree on is that none would take this decision lightly.  And that is -- in total honesty -- often the best we mere humans can do.

Just on this forum, I have seen the situatin you describe as normal in lot of our members household. For example, crating a dog when at work and crating a dog during sleep time. If you need to be convinced, explore the entire forum.

i hope this was not meant to be derogatory to people who crate? it sure came across that way.

we do crate our dogs. many other people on these forums crate their dogs. we (meaning me and my wife) do our best to make sure that our dogs receive plenty of attention and exercise, but not crating them while we are at work isnt an option right now....one of us quitting our job to stay home with the dogs isnt an option right now either.

saying crating is akin to a shelter dog being sequestered to a small run 24-7-365 is a gross exaggeration.

to the topic...

my opinions are very similar to what Kim_MacMillan has expressed so far. i hate to say that euthanization is an option, but it seems more fair and humane to have it as an option than to not.

we have had to face that option... twice so far. the first incident was with one of our cats. she became very ill. we took her to the vet. the vet offered us 2 solutions 1. PTS, 2. a long, expensive treatment that gave us about a 50% chance of seeing her recover. as much as i hate to say that finances had to be figured into the equation, they did. could we have over extended ourselves and tried the treatments? yes, but at the chance of loosing our house. how would that have helped our other pets or our the sick one had she survived? it was not an easy decision, and not one we took lightly.

the second incident was when we took in emma. she came down with parvo, and was very sick for quite a while. we took a chance with her. thankfully, our vet (different vet than before) was willing to let us pay her treatments in installments. there were many days when we wondered if we made the right decision. she suffered... A LOT! she went through about a weeks worth of treatments and was touch and go for quite some time after. was it fair to her to put her through all the pain and suffering? i still dont know. am i glad she is still with us? very much so.

sydney pulls like a mad man on walks. we have tried a few different methods to correct this, and so far none have worked. that said, i wouldnt consider euthanasia for that. it is annoying to me, but has not put anyone in danger nor has it affected his overall quality of life.

i have to say that euthing has crossed my mind with only one dog - not Kaydee -
but when we took in my grandmother's rottie mix.... he would without warning attack and rip a cat to shreds. all my cats were raised with dogs and had no fear of them. they liked dogs... would walk up to them. Sue, the rottie, would sit quietly and allow the cat to get close then proceed to kill. he managed to kill one kitten - my husband's - and before we got him he killed my grandad's cat, and my uncle had seem him go after strays that came into the yard....
 and yes.... the fact that he would do that was disturbing... how he would be so calm and quiet and deceptive about it.. i was afraid to let him around small children for that very reason.. though the kid nextdoor loved the big ugly dog and petted him all the time.
i did my best to make sure the conditions were controled and that Sue stayed on his leash at all times.. but he was old by the time we got him that the euth issue never came up. he died of old age before things could have gotten worse. but i remember the feeling i had of knowing i could NEVER have another dog or cat or rabbit, or horse - he once tried to bite a horse on the nose too - because he viewed everything as something he needed to bite.....

I agree that this is a very personal decision. And, what I'd do doesn't mean it's right for everyone.  But, I'll give my point of view since it's Saturday night and I'm home alone, LOL!
 

If a dog can't act well in public on a leash, regardless of whatever is done, should that dog be in public at all? Shouldn't that dog be in a highly managed situation? And what is the quality of the dog's life? And if the dog can only be handled on leash in a corrective collar and/or muzzle, what is the most humane thing for that dog? And what is most human for the 9 other dogs who are running out of time and room at a shelter but are just fine on leash?

 
I think depending on who the potential adopter is it could work out for a dog like this.  Willow needs to be managed all the time.  Granted, she's not in a muzzle or corrective collar.  But, only because she's micro managed daily.  My own dogs quality of life is really no different than any other and she has it better than most, I'd bet.  I alter my life to suite her needs.  And, if the right owner was willing to do that for this dog then I think the quality of life would be just like any other dog.  Willow only misses out on a few minor things--things some dogs don't get to do anyway.
 
I don't think necessarily it means that the other 9 will find homes just because this problem one is out of the picture either.  Willow's got lots of problems but no other dog could take her place.  And, I'm not just saying that from an emotional point of view.  There are traits about her that I really love.  And, the right person for this problem dog would feel the same about him. For me anyway, it's not as easy as "if Willow wasn't here, I'd go get this next guy". 
 
As for putting to sleep--for behavior I have one deal breaker.  Biting me or my DH.  If she bit someone else, I'd have to see what the circumstance was. 
 
For illness, that's completely different.  We'd do anything for her regardless of cost.  But, if the time came when that was the best decision for her, then it would be done. 

Yes, there are a times a dog should be PTS for behavioral issues.

Yes, I have done it.

Yes, it is painful to do.

No, I do not regret the decision.

I've written about it here.  I loved that dog with all my heart.  I still miss him.  And he was an unpredictable, dangerous dog. 

Excellent post, Lori.  I agree 100%.  If a dog can't be trusted to behave in public, then don't take the dog out in public.  Don't walk downtown, don't go to an outdoor cafe, don't go to a dog park. Surely  there is someplace you can take the dog for a walk, even if it means going very early in the morning and/or using a muzzle.  Some dogs just by their very nature require a lot more managing than others. Unless a dog was physically or mentally ill and in pain, I would consider PTS only if the dog became aggressive toward family members.  I think other situations can be managed with a willingness on the part of the owner to put in the time and effort it takes.
 
Joyce

And you, Lori, provide an excellent counterpoint to PTS for problems.
 
And it would have to be a case by case issue and certainly involving input for an owner/handler.
 
And I've seen a dog that I thought should be PTS for behavior problems another one that was PTS for what I thought would be a relatively minor problem.
 
One I thought should be PTS was a Rhodesian Ridgeback that had been in shelters for quite a bit of its life. Consistently reactive to every dog that walked within view. The rescue org handling him had a whole list of required things in order to care for him.
 
Second one was an Akita from our local shelter. He attacked one particular dog twice, getting along fine with the others. In the second attack, the blood present was his own, as the other dog scratched or bit only in self-defense or even as a result of the mechanics of motion, such as moving a paw to get away and accidently scratching the muzzle. This dog could have been fine on leash where distance could be increased to get out of the range of reactivity. But two attacks in one day was enough for the shelter to PTS. But I don't know how many people in our area would be savvy enough to handle an Akita. And our shelter does have limited resources. Their mobile pet adoption trailer is the result of a donation from someone with lots of money. And they do have insured liability to think about.

I'm against, unless the dog is terminally ill and living in pain with no hope of recovery.
 
Putting a dog down for human caused behavior problems, is unacceptable to me. But, that is the owner's decision.
 
Putting a dog down because there are too many dogs and "easier, more adoptable dogs" who need the resources and space the shelter has to offer, is unacceptable to me. But, that is the shelter director's decision.
 
Putting a dog down on the recommendation from a trainer who can't resolve the dog's issues using their preferred method, is unacceptable to me. Get a second opinion from another trainer who uses a bigger toolbox, range of philosophies, and methods than the first trainer, before putting your dog down.
 
The last two shelter dogs I adopted were headed for death. The two dogs I worked with last month were also headed for death.
 
This was unacceptable to me and their owners. So, we did something about it. It was my choice with my dogs, it was the owner's choice with their dogs.
 

 I hate this topic. So much that the last three posts I have typed I have deleted without posting. I am going to try one more time. I hate the thought of any dog being PTS as a cast off, a failure, and a thing that has no place. It is wrong and it pisses me off royally.
 
 In a perfect world there would be little need for killing any dog, only severe health problems would be cause for death. Even most behavior problems that result in death are the fault of humans. In that perfect world everyone would desire to know their dog, they would take time in choosing the correct dog for their lifestyles and would invest the time and money into making sure the dog was able to fit well into society and their family. Any decisions involving the family would involve the dog and you would not see dogs coming into shelters because owners no longer have a place for them.
 
 It is not, nor will it ever be a perfect world. The truth of the matter is that the large majority of the world does not see dogs like most of us posting on this forum do. They may be fond of them, but they do not often take the time to understand their behavior or the time to assist them in becoming well-adjusted members of society. Because of that (and other issues) our shelters are full. People that are willing and able to foster are rare, and in the minority. To evaluate a dog, to provide some measure of rehabilitation takes time and most people have a limit to the amount of dogs they can foster at one time. For me it is one as I have two of my own. Hypothetically lets say that one can prepare and find a home for the dogs that are not messed up, not old, not ill, and one could foster one dog every 30 days then I would be able to foster 12 dogs a year. If I choose one that is a challenge, one that requires a tremendous amount of time and work (lets say 3 months) now my capacity to foster has been reduced from 12 to 4. Based on that we need to be selective in choosing the dogs to re-home and be humane in putting to sleep those who will require great effort to rehabilitate. It sucks, it isn't right, but it is what it is. Mind you I do not always live by this philosophy so I suppose I could be called a hypocrite.
 
The second problem is homing shelter dogs. How much effort is enough? Is the goal to adopt to the first person having the credentials and stating that they want the dog? Is any follow up required? Do we color over behavior issues we may have seen in order to ensure someone wants the animal? Do we state “not good with kids” when we know that “not good with kids” really means he has bitten and we believe he may very well do so again? Do we tell them how warm and cuddly pit bulls are, what great family dogs they make and leave out that they require training and commitment because of their capacity to hurt someone if neglected? Is it a good idea to adopt out every dog?
 
 I do not have the answers to this problem, just like I do not have the answers to the question of why people are starving to death when there is plenty in the world to care for all. Maybe they are questions that will never be answered. I just know that they bother me, that I wish I could do more, that at times it feels like we are trying to fill up a swimming pool one drop at a time. But I do believe that to stand by a dog and give him comfort while the needle is placed, is sometimes more humane than to re-home him.