Kari McCloskey
Posted : 1/2/2007 11:28:04 PM
Colleen,
Sounds similar a case at a shelter I worked at. At the shelter we had a few dogs that were not very good with children. They did not care for the noise and fast movement of children, the unpredictablilty. So we deemed them to go to homes without children or young children. Then a law suit came through in I think OK, where a humane society had adopted out a dog (a Dobe), that had been turned into the shelter due to biting a child/person. The shelter had to keep the dog for a few days to observe. The dog was fine with everyone in the shelter, seemed fine with children and fine with other pets. The dog was adopted out. Guess what, the dog bit three more people, children/adults alike. The new owners sued the humane society for knowing and having documentation that the dog was a bite case. And humane society lost a lot of money in court that day. It made a lot of the shelters look at the dogs they had available for adoption. We put down 10 dogs in one day, all the ones that we had deemed not being good with children. They were really nice dogs, but unpredictable. Even if they went into a home without children, you can encounter a child on the street, in a park, at petsmart. Some people may be knowledgeable enough to know what to do, others may not. It's a liability that shelters are not willing to take. It is very easy for an adoptee to come back on the shelter for not evaluating the dog and placing them accourdingly. I know as the director, I would not let that dog leave the shelter as an adoptable or foster dog. It is a dangerous dog and will eventually kill a dog. Or hurt a person in the act.
The shelter I was at, we had a policy of not adopting dogs that were fear biters, know bite cases, dog aggressive or people aggressive. There really is not enough homes for these different types of cases. There are not enough people willing and knowledgeable enough to live with these types of dogs. I've have trained a large array of dogs, temperament wise. I will not work or live with a dog that is severely dog or people aggressive.
Kari