I see where you guys are coming from,and it easy easy for me to say that i'de never put my dogs to sleep because i've never been in a situation to warrant such a drastic step.But as i stand now i just dont think i could make that drive to the vet.It is hard enough for me to fathom the day one of my dogs is so sick that i have to take them for their last visit to the vet,i  can just  imagine myself sitting there and the vet coming toward my dog with the needle and me stopping them or pushing them away,i dont know how i'de be able to do it,letta lone cope afterward.I have this morbid thought all the time :( Taking a healthy dog(that attacked) to be put to sleep would be 1000 times harder,and i would have to give that dog every chance possible and find as many alternatives as i could before i could make that decision,or else i would be always wondering what iff,what iff,on top of the guilt of it all.

I don't see that dogs who attack are 'healthy', they maybe physically but mentally not so. I think I also differ from you in that I wouldn't allow my dog to get 'so sick' before making the decision to have a dog put down. To me, my dogs quality of life comes first and if I feel that their illness/incapacity is such that they have little quality of life I would take them to the vet before it became too bad (discounting sudden illness/accident of course). I believe that people who allow their pets to linger until they are ready to let go are heartless and only thinking of themselves and not their pets.
Becky

>I think I also differ from you in that I wouldn't allow my dog to get 'so sick' before making the decision to have a dog put down. To me, my dogs quality of life comes first and if I feel that their illness/incapacity is such that they have little quality of life<

No i dont think you differ from me at all in that respect,as i agree with your above statement.You just took what i said the wrong way :) No quality of life equals "so sick" in my book,i couldnt stand to see my dogs suffer for a second,and if they wernt able to do their normal daily doggy things or were in pain that i could do nothing about then yes the kindest thing would be to send them on to a better place.....

I think the biggest problem i have with some of the comments made on this thread is the wam bam put em to sleep attitude some owners have toward their very own dog if they dared step out of line.I dont understand how someone could be so adamant and forceful about getting rid of their beloved pet.

Comments such as:

>Irrelevant, the dog attacked a child without provocation. How could you rehome that?<

and

> Personally, in my opinion, if a dog attacks a person unprovoked then it should be put down<

and

>once a dog learns to use his teeth on people they tend to do so again.<

these come accross cold and harsh,if perhaps you also said something like "after every option was explored" or "there could have been a reason for attacking" or anything with some resembelance of compassion it wouldnt have been so bad.But you seem to have the attitude of if a dog even looks at you the wrong way it's on a one way trip to the vet :( I just dont have the heart to talk about my dogs or anyone elses that way.My dogs are a huge part of my family and i love them as i love my own children!

I really believe there are different levels of pet ownership.There are IMHO the average run of the mill Pet owners,owners who see their pets as show pieces and commodities,owners who's dogs arent good enough to live in the home and are relegated to kennels,dog lovers and true dog lovers.

I don't think that there are any other options to a dog attacking unprovoked. Unless the dog is suffering from something which caused it to attack (and I would assume that every aggressive dog has, at the very least, been checked out by a vet). You seem to think that dogs that attack unprovoked can be changed. I wish that were true, if they were biting out of fear yes, they may have a chance but I couldn't live with myself if I rehomed a dog that went on to attack someone else. Surely rehoming an aggressive dog is passing on the problem not resolving it. It may seem cold and harsh but really there are no options to people aggressive dogs.
Becky

>but I couldn't live with myself if I rehomed a dog that went on to attack someone else.<

Perhaps if the new owners were not made aware of the dogs problem first,it would be hard to live with yourself,but if someone was fully aware of what they were taking on and something happened then the blame couldnt lie with you,could it. The only reason a rehome would probably be necessary anyway would be if the dog didnt like kids and the family had children,or if the owner didnt want to put the effort into training,conditioning,medicating or whatever would help the dog.

I brought my dogs into my home,if something negative were to happen concerning them then i think i owe it to them to do everything possible and explore every option before taking their life away from them.

As is usually the case in these situations the child from IMOTD was alone with the dog when the attack happened,what if she was tormenting him and he retaliated,the dog was PTS through no fault of his own.This dog should have been rehomed to a childless family.
I've seen and heard of kids pulling on their pets ears,stepping on their dogs and all manner of cruel things,to the point that i've wished the dog turned around and had a go at the child,or better yet the parents,who let their children treat animals with such disrespect!

Nothing makes me angrier when i hear  parents gloating about how bomb proof their dogs are because "he lets junior rip on his ears" or "sit/jump on him" etc etc How they let their children get away with this is beyond me :rolleyes:

We will never know truly what happened but the dog clearly attacked the child severely as could be seen by her injuries. I have had a dog returned to me after 4 years because he nipped their toddler. I rehomed him to another family with older children and having explined that he had nipped the toddler and that was why he was returned. They took him on despite this. One of their children proceeded to chase him and made a dive for him under the kitchen table and he nipped her. He came back and I subsequently rehomed him to a home with no children and again with FULL details of his background. So you see I don't agree with putting a dog down that has bitten but if I had been told that the dog had attacked unprovoked and caused quite serious injuries then I wouldn't have risked rehoming him again.
Becky

Hi,

I think there is a big difference between a dog attacking un provoked and a dog has bitten because it hasn't been trained properly.  From what we saw on 'It's me or the dog' was a dog that had bitten, through poor handling and training.  It was allowed to take food left right and centre, so naturally thought food in sight was his.  It's punishnent was to bop it on the nose :rolleyes: Even after V Stilwell has given them some ground rules for kitchen and eating time - the owner continued to be completely inconsistent with him.  They then left the child alone with him, who knows what happened out side,  it may have been over food that she had tried to get off him, the young girl wasn't likey to admit that it was after she'd had a talking to about not doing just that, it could have been any number of things.  My problem comes when we are having to put animals to sleep that have become unpredictable or unmanageable because of ignorance or lack of training/work and management on the owners part, and I do think that is what happened here. 

I think there are cases where it's unfortunately the only safe and fair option but I think that's fairly rare as I think are completely unprovked attacks; and these usually come from dogs who have had a rough time of things and have learnt that a warning makes no difference so miss that bit out.

Karen

Whilst I don't want to provoke a fight, especially with all the cocker people, it does seem to me that 'rage syndrome' is swept under the carpet. It does exist, and whilst you say it is rare, I have known 3 cockers with rage (and owned one briefly from rescue, many many years ago), and I am not 'connected' with cockers, so don't come across that many.
My friend had a cocker with rage, that she kept all his life until he was 17 and just lived with his condition. I am interested as to why so many people (in the Cocker Spaniel world especially) dismiss this condition? I do appreciate that in percentage terms it may be quite low - but would it not be right to acknowledge it's existance and try and determine what breeding produces it. Obviously self coloureds are the victims of it, but what about breeding lines. If everyone pretends it doesn't exists, how can it be addressed? Perhaps breeders are afraid it would affect sales of self coloured puppies?

Whilst I don't want to provoke a fight, especially with all the cocker people, it does seem to me that 'rage syndrome' is swept under the carpet. It does exist, and whilst you say it is rare, I have known 3 cockers with rage (and owned one briefly from rescue, many many years ago), and I am not 'connected' with cockers, so don't come across that many.

Yep. I had one! She was pure Jekyll and Hyde. And she WASN'T solid coloured!

Who's sweeping it under the carpet? Saying Rage Syndrome is a rare condition is not sweeping it under the carpet, it's saying that statistically it's a rare condition when you consider how many Cockers there are, not that it doesn't exist (although at least one well-known canine behaviourist, Peter Neville, believes it does not exist) It's also a condition that is often misdiagnosed - any aggressive behaviour in a solid Cocker is often labelled as "Rage" by vets & others when the behaviour displayed does not match the symptoms of a Rage afflicted dog which are quite specific. I'm sure you're aware that the Cocker Spaniel Breed Council did fund a research study into Rage Syndrome some years ago using funds raised by breeders so you can hardly claim that Cocker breeders have dismissed the problem. There are of course differences of opinion on this subject amongst breeders as there are amongst canine behaviour experts but that hardly adds up to what you're saying. I'm not sure that this is actually relevant to this discussion anyway as there is not enough information available for anyone to be able to diagnose whether the Cocker shown in the IMOTD show had an underlying condition like Rage or not.

Cocker Rage syndrome does exist but it is rare and very often is a lazy diagnosis for behaviours that are nothing of the sort. Which is precisely why informed people tend to be cautious when they see the words "cocker rage" bandied around. It isn't any wish to sweep the problem under the carpet but rather, it's a wish to have a degree of greater certainty before applying this drastic diagnosis.

When I rehomed my lovely blue roan cocker, Bob, he'd had a fairly disrupted life leading up to the death of his former owner. As a result he quickly attached himself to me like a shadow and wasn't always very interested in listening to requests from anyone else. Not that cockers necessarily need a reason to be stubborn anyway. However, Bob once grumbled at being told to go downstairs by my OH and the friend who was round at the time immediately launched into a great spiel about Cocker Rage. Since Bob was mainly so laid back as to be horizontal the idea was ludicrous but cocker spaniel owners can find themselves on the receiving end of this sort of nonsensical suggestion rather too often. Hence the caution in chucking this sort of diagnosis around without good reason.

Not commenting on the particular circumstances, as obviously I wasn't there, but we only know what we have been told, and we were told the dog attacked without provocation. However "provocation" in a dog's eyes is not necessarily easily apparent to a human, they are after all a different species.

This was meant to appear a lot further back, but as a statement it still makes sense.

Jane S: Yes I am aware that the breed council and kennel club did start to try and identify why and in what lines rage was ocurring. However after a few years it did just fall by the wayside and was never really completed.
I'm sure that if there was a particular 'syndrome' bandied about in my chosen breed, I would feel the same - that everyone was jumping to conclusions inaccurately. Poor temperament however is very evident in my breed and that is just simply bad and careless breeding.
Kat