Originally Posted by
QCKLime
Jeez, this thread blew up while the site was down....
Anyhow Jack, you and I aren't really at odds in this conversation at all, based on your latter responses. If the original post had come from someone who quite clearly KNEW what a TRUE maneating dog was, and was asking what to do with the one on his yard, the answer would be very clear cut. Everything I got from his post makes it seem that he doesn't have much experience in the way of dogs whatsoever, much less on how to decipher a rambunctious pup from one that is going to grow up and maul someone's child. If he had a puppy that had attacked a family member with the sort of intensity and intent you've mentioned in your replies, surely he would know what to do with a dog such as that without coming to a message board to ask for advice. It's unclear what exactly the pup has done to make him feel that he's HA, and apparently, he isn't HA to the point that this guy wants him gone, which leads me to believe he's a puppy that could be worked with. That still doesn't mean that this is the dog for his family, or that he's the guy to do the work this dog may need.
I've SEEN EVO around dogs, I KNOW he's a skilled dogman in how he handles them and handles himself around dogs. If EVO tells me to watch my ass around a dog, I'm gonna do it, because I know HE knows wtf he's talking about. By the same token, being a person who knows how to handle dogs, in my FULL opinion and experience, lends a big hand to how a dog relates to you -- which is probably why that HA bitch that EVO picked up was a total sweetheart to him, when she had VICIOUSLY attacked every other man she'd EVER come into contact with. Her previous owner once tried to "punk her down" (as workingAPBT mentioned in one of his posts) and she grabbed his leg and shook him off of his feet, he snatched up a shovel to fight her off, and she went straight to attacking that, too. The person matters. EVO's brother could tell me to be wary of a dog, and I'm not going to give it nearly as much thought, like with CH Sam. Apparently he liked to bite people, too, but that dog adored me.
That isn't to say that there aren't simply bad dogs out there, I know that there are -- I just don't agree that there are PUPPIES that far gone -- for instance, DTown told me once about a bitch he had, I think she was Boyles bred, but I can't exactly recall, but according to him, this bitch was BAD NEWS, ended up attacking his daughter and himself, and she had two littermates that turned out exactly the same. Simply bad dogs. And DTown is probably the most impressive human being I've ever seen work with dogs, it's like watching Buck Brannaman work with horses, he just has something. So in rare cases, yes, there are genetically irreparable dogs out there, that have no business being kept around. I just don't think, from this fella's description, that his pup fits that mold.
I'll agree that nine times out of ten, it's the person that needs to work on what they're doing, as opposed to the dog. Dogs respond to us, to everything that we do, they train themselves based off of our actions, and that is true in every case except for the very, very few who are genetically rotten apples who have literally NO desire to work with or please ANY person out there. And I've worked with VARIOUS breeds, with VARYING degrees of aggression, but you can generally tell right off the bat which ones will be okay and which ones won't. I've fostered American Bulldogs that had reached their limit of human attacks before being classified as a "dangerous dog",
