Euthanize or NILIF? Confused..

ORIGINAL: ron2

And if I were to adopt that sweet dog that will let you place your hand in the bowl over the food and never hear a squeak out of him, I still say no child in my house will be messing with the dog's food. That's the way I was raised. Parents are in control, not children. And one doesn't mess with a dog while he is eating (NILIF aside).

Ok ron2, now i'll play a little devil's advocate...if a dog is food or possesion agressive/protective, that also means that a child can not participate in any sort of treat-as-incentive based training. It would be very sad to have to exclude my kids from training.

That being said...I am VERY strict and protective when it comes to my dogs, and I have had a ruined friendship because someone's (stupid) child couldnt respect our "dog rules"

but i feel that food agressive/protective is a pretty big deal....what if your food protective dog had somehow obtained a cooked chicken bone you wanted to fish out of his mouth? my cleaner just fed my dogs that today and if i had a food issue dog i couldve been mauled...but i know and trust my dogs, and i knew i was safe...and if my dogs were recently adopted from a shelter i would find it compforting to know that they had tested my dog for that.

but it is a lot of what if's. i wish the temp test included something about ripping up xmas presents and cashmere sweaters!

But why should the shelter staff be punished for the crimes of previous owners/bad breeding/overpopulation? Because by making Euthanasia as Emtionally difficult as possible, it is affecting the wrong people.

 
Absolutely...it's not like the ACTUAL people responsible for the temperament of the dog...the breeder, the owner, the people who raised it thus or allowed that sort of behavior...feel ANY of the pain of the euthanasia. Why punish those people who take on the selfless task of working at the shelter?? To what end?
 
Great post Shan.

I love the Amimal Cops shows (even though they make me homicidal sometimes).
 
I'm not promoting the adoption of aggressive dogs but FWIW when I was a kid if a kid stuck their hand in a dog's bowl the kid got his/her butt kicked. If the hand was bitten the kid just got yelled at.

It is not  only children that need to be protected from dogs with resource or territorial aggression...it is the public at large. If there were a shortage of adoptable dogs with other less potentially dangerous problems my answer would be totally different.
 
I've known too many grown adults who are actually afraid of their own dogs....to ever think that placing a resource or territorially aggro dog with JQP is a good idea...regardless of what training is done prior.
 
The thing about training is that it never ends...it must be kept up thruout the dogs life to have any effect in the one or two moments you make truly need  it to work. Complacency is the enemy of anyone who lives with a resource guarder or territorially/dog aggro dog...IMO.

Blaming the owners also plays into softening the emotional difficulty of PTS.  When it#%92s an Outofmyhands approach I believe it takes away the incentives, initiatives, and creativity of the people to change the situation.  Plus I don#%92t see how this approach cushions the emotional difficult response in the next tier of dogs to be PTS, those that don#%92t fail the test.  I would think for any human individual it would create an intense emotional conflict.  Why did I feel ok in one situation and not in the other one.  I believe that any dog who is PTS in shelter should get the same tears shed as a family dog in vet#%92s office.  After all, domestic dogs are created by man and are in our guardianship.   
 
I would like to know more and hear from people who perform these test, a description of the test, and what qualifications one should have to perform these test. 
 
Shanmcd, as a former director of a shelter, can you talk about the shelter#%92s mission and your volunteer staff.  The reason I ask is because shelters that have a very well organized volunteer staff, seem to have lower euthanasia rate.  I am part of rescue organization and we seek out shelters with high euthanasia rate and then pull from them.

Now, if you really want a controversial subject...think about adopting dog-agressive dogs...

 
Hey now THAT struck a nerve lol! I am a former Akita person and their breed rescue's major MAJOR stumbling block is the shortage of "one dog only", homes out there with no kids or no cats, etc etc! Factor in JUST the Akitas out there needing homes like these...and then the general dog population that needs home like these....arrrghh! [:@]

ORIGINAL: rwbeagles


...The thing about training is that it never ends...it must be kept up thruout the dogs life to have any effect in the one or two moments you make truly need  it to work. Complacency is the enemy of anyone who lives with a resource guarder or territorially/dog aggro dog...IMO.

I don't think so.  When the dog is first introduced into the house there is formal training and training diminishes over time.  I have 2 8 years old and a 2 year old and we are at the stage where we live our lives...no more training.

ORIGINAL: rwbeagles

...I sure wouldn't want AC wasting my tax monies working with dogs like this, taking up kennel space, euthanizing other dogs, without being 100% sure of the outcome...which you never would be. The shelter bears the responsibility for that animal when it bites..because they knew it might.

 
You probably have more control over how your tax dollars are spent in your local shelter since they are funded mostly by the municipality or county tax dollars.  If it was at a higher level such as state or fed, we would have more consistency in shelter's operations.

i wish the temp test included something about ripping up xmas presents and cashmere sweaters!

 
Would that be a temp test for the humans? As in, what would the prospective owner do if they found the dog had shredded gift wrapping?
 
You do raise a good point that a food guarding dog could be a challenge to train. Believe me, I understand the limited time. An ACO is bringing in another sweet dog, so far and seems to be docile, rather than fearful, and the one your testing now snaps once or twice when you flop that ersatz hand around 5 or 10 times in the bowl. What do you do? You, the tester, give him a score of 3. Now, it's out of your hands. The score has been given and no one will question your judgement because your judgement has lowered the insurance liabilty of the shelter. And freed up a kennel and food for the next dog that is just now arriving, that may be wholly adoptable.
 
It's a no win situation that is punctuated by instances where a great dog goes with a good family. And shelter workers who do care, regardless of it being out of their hands, deserve respect and gratitude for doing a job that is largely thankless. Managing the out of control pet population, which won't slow down, partially because we can't do anything about the misguided humans (that was the nicest thing I could think of) that create this problem.
 
I realize, too, that you have to have some emotional distance to even do the job and I'm sure there is some turnover and burn-out. It's reminiscent of triage in the battlefield. You decide who lives and dies and you have to be quick about because another wave of casualties is coming in.
 

I 100% disagree with their testing but shelters only have a certain amount of space for unwanted pets so they have to come up with some form of elimination. No way is fair. They just as well do heads or tails. The problem still lies in irresponsible breeding, puppy mills, bybs and plain old bad dog owners.

ORIGINAL: muckypup

... The problem still lies in irresponsible breeding, puppy mills, bybs and plain old bad dog owners.

 
A proven way to reduce overpopulation and then euthanasia is an aggressive campaign to spay/neuter.  According to the Humane Society of USA, the Northeastern states have the lowest euthanasia rates while the south has the highest.  In Chicago a group of business men got together to create a NFP PAWS-Chicago.  They claim to have reduced the euthanasia rate in Chicago shelters by 50% through dog education and offering free spay/neuter service.  The trend is moving westward.

I have to agree with Gina and those who have said that training is on-going.  Be it kids or dogs, they all need a chance to practice the right behavior throughout their lives.  We do mini training sessions all the time and they've become so much part of the fabric of our lives that we even think of them as training....

ORIGINAL: glenmar

I have to agree with Gina and those who have said that training is on-going.  ...

 
Only rwbeagles made that comment, there were no others.

I stand corrected.  Excuse me....I'm doing more scanning than normal these days and I thot I had seen this said in other posts.  Regardless, I think some of us are so used to the little bits of training we do throughout the day that it's becomes so much a part of the fabric of our lives that we don't REALIZE that we are actually training.  I KNOW that this is the case for me.  I honestly don't notice the daily training I do until someone else points it out.

I am happy to read the bad times are turning around for you and just in time for the holidays.  I also know about getting a new job and its time commitment takes away from other things.
 
I think what you are calling your daily training is same as I say when we just live our lives together.  The communications and interactions with your pets are now more fun and games than anything else.  You might say that is your special time with your pets.