Question.

[babsbag]

Maybe the rescue needs to do a little better job evaluating the dogs before they let them go to a home with small children?

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Ditto what Babs said!

 

[Goat Whisperer]

Bossroo is absolutely right. Sadly this is a common occurrence

Babs- you are right. Shelters need to do a better job at evaluating. BUT when no one wants to put a dog down- then what? Who takes all the crazed, nutjob dogs? Everyone wants to save every single dog that strolls through the shelter..................... But this is a topic for another day. Don't need a full blown war here

Anyway... This is starting to get a bit off topic.

@Leah567 If you answer my questions you might get a better answer. But I don't think this is the right dog for you based on your previous posts.

 

[Latestarter]

I wasn't recommending these for profit shelters (read rescues)... I was talking like the county lock-up. I wouldn't spend the money these "rescues" are asking for a dog with no history, many rescued from kill shelters because nobody wanted them. There's never (very rarely) any guarantees, even from a breeder.

 

[babsbag]

Our county shelter does a good job evaluating the dogs. My next house dogs are going to be older dogs that have been surrendered by people moving or family of someone who died or can't keep it.

 

[Bunnylady]

I've heard it's best not to get a full grown dog because they can turn on you if you didn't raise them

This is the first time I have ever heard this statement. Raising an animal from a puppy is no guarantee that it will behave deferentially toward the owner, either. There are countless videos on YouTube of people with small dogs that growl and snarl at their owners and get laughed at until they bite the owner. One of our small dogs, which my husband and I got as a puppy, bit 3 people in the course of her long, ditsy life - one was me, another my toddler son. This was one of the sweetest dogs I have ever known, one no person in their right mind could classify as "mean." These were out of the blue, unthinking reactive snaps, but it was canine dentition contacting human integument, and it hurt. The only advantage to getting a puppy is that you know exactly what handling it has had, and if it behaves badly as an adult, you know you are the person to blame for the misbehavior.

 

[Southern by choice]

. The only advantage to getting a puppy is that you know exactly what handling it has had, and if it behaves badly as an adult, you know you are the person to blame for the misbehavior.

This is not exactly true. Although I would say the majority of the time it is from owners that will not train their dogs and do not establish the proper roles.
Many fail to recognize today that poor behavior, social anxieties, fearbiters, and the list goes on... is NOT always a result of how a pup was raised.
This is becoming problematic as rescues want to deem every dog with ill behaviors as it was obviously abused. Far too many people in the dog world do gooders that have no clue and want to save everything because some awful human must of caused the problem.
Poor breeding, genetic disposition, birth difficulties, lack of oxygen, toxic exposure in utero, infection of dam or pup can cause a myriad of issues. Spaying and neutering can also cause behavioral issues.

 

[greybeard]

This is not exactly true. Although I would say the majority of the time it is from owners that will not train their dogs and do not establish the proper roles.
Many fail to recognize today that poor behavior, social anxieties, fearbiters, and the list goes on... is NOT always a result of how a pup was raised.
This is becoming problematic as rescues want to deem every dog with ill behaviors as it was obviously abused. Far too many people in the dog world do gooders that have no clue and want to save everything because some awful human must of caused the problem.
Poor breeding, genetic disposition, birth difficulties, lack of oxygen, toxic exposure in utero, infection of dam or pup can cause a myriad of issues. Spaying and neutering can also cause behavioral issues.

Good assessment. Even the best pedigreed and carefully raised puppy can have unexplained behavioral problems. Same with livestock and of course, we all know of at least one person that lovingly raised a child by the highest of standards and yet that child grew up to have problems getting along in society, even to violent or criminal extents, and that's from a species that we can actually talk and listen to. Brains are just peculiar things..

 

[Bunnylady]

Many fail to recognize today that poor behavior, social anxieties, fearbiters, and the list goes on... is NOT always a result of how a pup was raised.

One of those shepherd crosses that I mentioned earlier in this thread was a total flake. Some of it was probably the result of abuse that he suffered before he was abandoned, but some of it was just the way his brain was wired. He would do what he was told when I was there to tell him, but no amount of training could have turned him into a stable, friendly, confident dog. Because I knew this about him, I felt it was my responsibility to keep him out of situations where he might act inappropriately. So yeah, if Cisco behaved badly, I felt it was my fault - for putting him there in the first place, knowing him as well as I did.

 

[Mike CHS]

Our county shelter does a good job evaluating the dogs. My next house dogs are going to be older dogs that have been surrendered by people moving or family of someone who died or can't keep it.

Our herding dogs are also our house dogs so they are multi-purpose.