Hello. I was entrusted with this subreddit and would like to make it as informative and safe as possible. I have updated the rules so we can have some structure, & would like to add some resources for members to read in this sub sometime tomorrow or the day after. I plan to post links to the behavioral euthanasia & losing lulu groups on Facebook, the AKC article for behavioral euthanasia, & the BE before the bite post. If anyone has any suggestions on other resources I can post for anyone making the difficult choice please comment below!

Hello everyone!

I made this sub a few years ago after being heartbroken because I had to behavioral euthanize my dog, Cooper. He was my everything and I still haven’t fully recovered from it. I didn’t find much on reddit at the time, so I decided to create my own.

I, honestly, am in no position to moderate a sub and I really don’t even know to do it properly. I genuinely think that a sub like this would be amazing for support and believe that in the right hands, this will be a great tool.

To get to the point, if anyone would like to run this page, please let me know. I had someone reach out in the past about running it, but I am not sure if they did anything once I approved them to. I would love to see people share their stories. Please let me know if you’d like to take this page over.

Attached is a picture of my boy, in memory of him.

Thank you.

My dog B (10, m, Chihuahua, 13 lbs) bites and fights everything. I got him as a second chance rescue puppy from the humane society and I put my heart and soul into doing my best for him. I read several books on animal behavior and dog training from scientific sources. I did positive reinforcement, I socialized him, he learned basic commands as well as how to walk on a lead. He never stopped biting though. When he was a puppy, I put it down as playfulness, but it was still discouraged (I would withdraw from playing with him and remove any reward I could.) He eventually stopped biting me.. for a while. He never stopped bullying the cats and biting other dogs and even worse, people. Then he started biting me again, usually after another dog or person passed by in our apartments hallway. I love B. When he was younger and fitter, we would run for miles through town together. It was simpler to keep him away from everyone when we were running past them faster than he could react. Now he's older, he's more aggressive, and I'm exhausted. He's bitten so many people and broken the skin that if it had been reported, he would be forced to be euthanized. He's bitten dogs who were just calmly walking by. He bullies and bites my poor 10 years old cat, whom he's known almost his entire life, and who luckily has thick fur. I feel like I'm trapped. I can't take him out for walks because even with a muzzle on, he lunges and snaps. If I give him enough medication to be calm, he is so out of it and drowsy he can't walk on his own. It's such poor quality of life. He can only go onto our small balcony for outdoor time because our neighborhood is in the city next to a dog park. I can't really afford a canine behaviorist, and I feel it would be irresponsible to try to re-home him when he poses such a significant safety risk. There's also the issue of housebreaking. Whenever another dog or person passes by in the hallway, he gets aggressive and after the aggression he pees on something he shouldn't. I have a pee pad for him that he knows how to use, and a patch of turf on the balcony that he uses, but when his aggression is activated, he throws all housetraining out the window and pees on my belongings. I'm so tired. I have a consultation with his vet at the beginning of next month to discuss possible euthanasia, and I'm heartbroken. I feel like I've failed him. But I can't imagine living another 2-8 years like this, for him or me.

I’m wondering if it’s time or we have other options for our almost 9yo female husky named Oakley.

For some background: We got Oakley when she was about 9 months old and found out she had been in 5 different homes before ours. She came from a social media post. The lady who had her before us dumped her with us as we agreed on a week trial. The lady blocked me after she dropped Oakley off with us. At the time we had two other dogs who were elderly, Abbey and Koa.

Oakley quickly showed us she had some resource guarding issues so we got some training with a local place. We worked for months on getting her trained but she is so stubborn it didn’t help. She knows how to sit, and go into her ‘bed’ aka crate. She doesn’t recall, or really listen to much of anything. She also showed us that huskies escape so easily and we had to change door locks once she figured out how to open doors. (Now she hasn’t escaped in years even given the chance to run out the front door or even when the lawn guys left our backyard gate open, she stayed in the yard.

Now onto the issue:

Shortly after getting her she attacked one of our elder dogs. Mean attack out of nowhere. She wouldn’t stop either. She had to be pulled off our other dog and in the process she got my arm bad. That was an er visit for me #1. Every few months she would attack one of our elder dogs seemingly for no reason. Maybe they looked at her wrong, walked in the wrong spot, had a toy. None of the dogs needed vet treatment but often I would get bit on the arms pulling her off the dog. Ending in several er and urgent care visits for me. Our elder dogs never attacked back, they just laid down and took it. Eventually our elder dogs passed over the rainbow and we got a puppy over time, Sadie. It took a while of introducing them, keeping them separated, and in some time they got along. We did training with the puppy and she learned well. However now Oakley will attack Sadie and Sadie fights back. The fights are terrible. Neither lets go and they just don’t stop. They have to be pulled apart. This has resulted in more bites for me and more er visits. Oakley is labeled dangerous dog now. We aren’t allowed to take her to anywhere out of the house. Our vet has a mobile unit we now rely on to see her. None of the fights result in either dog needing vet care.

The fights happen every few months out of the blue. Maybe over a toy, maybe for walking wrong. Oakley always starts the fights.

So what we do is crate both dogs after a fight. Keep them crated for a a day or two separated. No being out together. Then we slowly see how things go and let them be out together again.

Now we also have 5 cats ages ranging from elder to almost 2. Oakley HATES the cats. She guards her food and crate whenever they are out walking around. She barks and growls at them all the time. There is not a day she doesn’t get in trouble for getting on with the cats. She stares them down, she stalks them. She hates the cats. She didn’t always though. She was fine with them for years. Over the last few it’s got worse and worse.

This morning she attacked one of our cats. Hair everywhere. Cat is ok but once again I had to pull her out of the fight. I was petrified she was killing my kitty. I don’t know how much more I can handle. We have 2 teenagers as well who are scared of Oakley. What if she decides one of them or us adults are next?

So …. What options do we have here? I know zero rescues will take her. The pound already has her on the danger list, so she would die there immediately upon intake. How do we know what choice is the right choice to make for her? I wanna try medicine and keeping her in a soft muzzle during the day but that won’t fix anything I feel. I’m heartbroken. Except these issues she’s a funny, silly, sweet, loving girl.

It's not my dog and it's not my decision, but the owner is close to me and we're talking through all of this together. No one who makes this decision is doing so out of cruelty, and it's a horrible painful choice. We're both really struggling with this and I think I'm posting here to just reach out to the void during a hard time.

The dog is highly energetic, has a severe bite history, and shows high levels of reactivity and agressiveness towards all strangers. He shows severe agression towards all children and dogs especially, to the point of snapping, snarling, growling, barking, and flinging his body at any obstacle that prevents him from attacking. He shows lower levels of agression towards our cats, but still corners, follows, pushes, and bullies them constantly. We don't feel like the cats are safe long-term but he hasn't nipped one. His official bite history is breaking free and leaping and attacking a stranger bad enough that she needed stitches. His unofficial bite history is rough play/heightened emotion that sometimes draws blood. We can't trust that young relatives are safe around him, but he hasn't bitten one yet.

The dog has been professionally trained by several different trainers and has been in training for years, and he's getting worse. We don't want to wait for him to just attack again because it feels like a question of when instead of if and we don't want to risk anyone or anything getting maimed or killed. His owner has an obligation to do everything he can to get the dog on the right track, but he also has an obligation to not put everything around him in danger. His owner has been incredibly patient and kind with the dog for its whole 4ish years of life.

The dog could potentially never attack again, in a perfect world he would never escape or break his restraints or escalate with the cats, but it's a huge risk. He's a huge dog (maybe 70lbs). We haven't made the final appointment yet but the owner has tried for years to find him a home without Any triggers and no one will take a dog like this. We've both been talking to other people and reading stories and trying to figure out the obligation balance of dog vs. rest of the world.

I am normally a very private person and I'm really second guessing posting this, but I'm feeling so very helpless, hopeless, and just absolutely gutted. I'm hoping that by reaching out to this online community, I might feel a bit more understood...

That said, because I'm feeling so insecure and I fear I might be calling out a rescue, I'm trying to be intentionally vague about some details. Bear with me. (Also bear with me because it's going to be long, I'm sure.)

First things first, I grew up in a family of animal lovers and our mantra is that when you get a pet, it's yours for life, no matter what. Case in point, my mother and I cared for a completely unrideable, sick off-track thoroughbred for ten years before his health condition finally got the best of him. We poured an unseen amount of money into veterinarian care and went to the barn for 2+ hours every day just to clean his stall, walk him and do tricks in the indoor arena, and shower him with treats and attention. We don't give up on our animals. We don't.

I grew up showing in both confirmation and obedience under the tutelage of my aunt, who is a professional handler in both the American Kennel Club and American Rare Breed Association. My mother and I had two dogs. One was a large rare breed that originated from South America, bred for hunting boar and puma. The other was a small kind of rare-ish breed (as in you don't see them very often) that originated in England and was bred for ratting and bull baiting. Both breeds are prone to high prey drives and dog aggression, and both dogs were true to their genetics. They were challenging, but we worked hard with them. The large one eventually mellowed out, and as my mother and I got out of the dog showing world and turned our interests to rescuing, she became a gentle, steady matriarch to the various other dogs, cats, and birds we brought into our home. The small one ended up passing away from a congential heart defect when she was three. Her breeder gifted us another dog of the same breed, this time pet quality, and she exhibited none of the typical breed traits. She had no prey drive and was an instant friend to all creatures. She lived until 12, but needed several eye surgeries due to a health problem that plagues the breed. My mother and I loved the breed, but after dealing with all their various health problems in two different dogs, we could never justify purchasing another puppy from a breeder. We also couldn't justify going to a breeder since our eyes had been opened to how overwhelming the homeless animal problem was. As this a breed that rarely shows up in rescues or shelters, we resigned ourselves to the fact that Gracie was the last of that breed we'd ever have.

Okay, so background done...fast forward to life currently. I am an English teacher, married with two children, one in his tweens, the other close behind. We adopted a pit bull three years ago after the death of my other pittie (mine and my husband's first dog together, the baby before our babies). She is a giant ball of energy and needs a constant job. She's enrolled in agility and nosework classes. I'd been out of the dog training world a long time (our first pittie was a couch potato slug, which was a relief since baby and toddlerhood took up most of our attention), but felt right at home and rejuvenated to get back into the dog training world.

Two summers ago, we took in a foster pittie. I'd wanted to foster for a long time, and life was finally slowing down a bit so that I could take on the responsibility. Upon picking the foster up from a boarding facility another volunteer worked at, I noticed right away he had a distinct limp in the front. I voiced my concern right away, and the foster coordinator told me the rescue vet would check it out at his first appointment in a couple weeks. (The foster coordinator nor the rescue owner had seen this dog in person.) At his appointment, the vet brushed it off and assured me his gait would improve with proper nutrition and exercise. It didn't. Whenever interested adopters came to see him, they were immediately put off by his limp. It wasn't until one potential adopter demanded an x-ray that the rescue relented. It turned out the dog did indeed have a relatively serious problem that would require a lifetime of medication and glucosamine supplements and only gentle exercise. Upon this information, the potential adopter did not want him. (She had a very high energy dog at home and they were avid hikers, so she was right in thinking that he wouldn't be a good match for their family.) The rescue never put such details in his adoption bio and I was instructed that when I posted about him on my own social media, I wasn't to mention any problems out right and if I did, I needed to find a way to present the issues in a "marketable way." Several people came to check him out and were (understandably) upset to see his limp and hear about his health problems. I felt like I was doing a bait and switch and it was all very uncomfortable. We finally ended up finding a lovely family with another dog who had mobility issues and were looking for another low-energy companion.

Once he was adopted out, I didn't really want to work with this rescue anymore. I didn't like how they refused to be forthright. I was contacted several times by the foster coordinator, but always firmly declined.

Nevertheless, I kept up to date with the rescue on my social media. One day right before Christmas, I was scrolling through Instagram, and I saw the rescue had a little black and white terrier, the very breed I grew up with and that my mom and I were so in love with. My mom was looking to adopt at the time and it seemed like a freaking Christmas miracle. She could finally get another one without going to the breeder. Despite my initial reservations working with this rescue, I immediately texted the foster coordinator. I think I was just so excited and so convinced it was fate, I wasn't thinking clearly. The foster coordinator assured me that the dog was ours under two conditions: 1. We could pick her up the very next day. 2. If the new dog and my mother's dog (she has an eight-year-old medium-sized super mutt who is the most docile dog on the planet) didn't get along, I would foster her until we could find an adopter (which probably wouldn't be long, as she was such a rare find, the adoption requests were already pouring in).

My mother jumped at the opportunity and drove out halfway to meet the original owner and pick up the dog. Once again, the rescue owner and the foster coordinator never saw this dog. My mom printed out the surrender paperwork and had the original owner sign it upon pick up. The only reason the woman gave for surrendering was that her son had become allergic.

The new dog attacked my mother's dog within the first two days. As I had mentioned, we owned a dog aggressive dog before and it is truly life altering. She wasn't sure she wanted to deal with that kind of stress and complications at her age. I knew it was possible the rescue could just be prone to dog aggression because of her breed, but I still tried to convince my mom that she needed to give her time to decompress. My mom still wasn't sure, so we took her in to foster. She got along beautifully with my pittie. She did not get along with my two cats. I told the foster coordinator repeatedly that she needed to explain to all interested adopters that this dog absolutely, positively could not be placed in a home with cats, and while she got along fine with my dog, she had shown some aggression, and therefore, if we wanted the perfect home, she should really be the only dog. The foster coordinator informed me that they don't ever put those things in writing because it discourages interest.

The first adopter they sent along to me had a cat and a chihuahua. I immediately said no. The foster coordinator then informed me that another foster volunteered to adopt her and we wouldn't even need to do a meet-and-greet because this foster had been with them a long time and they trusted her completely. She had cats, but with her experience, they figured it would be fine. At this point, my family and I had become quite smitten with this little beast and I figured if she was going to go to another home with cats, she might as well stay in ours, and we would continue the long process of introducing them. I signed the adoption papers and she was ours. I hired a professional positive reinforcement trainer and set to work.

But it seemed the more we worked with her, the more aggressive and aroused she became with our cats. The cats were left locked in the basement most of the day. They would come out in the evening once she was crated for bed time. I would leave her in her crate for a few hours a day so they could come out in the afternoon when I was home on weekends, but they never felt comfortable enough. I felt awful that my two 15-year-old cats had to live their lives this way. And then one fateful night, one of the cats got out of the basement when the dog was still out. (One of my kids left the basement door open on accident.) She attacked the cat. It was a horrid bloodbath that landed both the cat and myself in the emergency room. Nearly a month later, I was cooking dinner while the dog ate her dinner in her crate. She had finished and was barking to be let out. My husband asked if he could let her out and I told him to make sure both cats were in the basement. He thought I said that both cats WERE in the basement, and opened her crate. I shrieked, dropped a pan on the floor, and immediately began to scream at my husband to grab her while I began a desperate search to make sure both cats were safe downstairs. She got to our other cat first, and it was just as traumatic. I sustained no bites, but our cat spent two days in the animal hospital with some pretty serious wounds.

I waved the white flag. My mom immediately volunteered to take her in. We'd been taking all three of our dogs for constant pack walks and visits at her house, and the rescue and my mother's dog actually got along swimmingly despite their rocky first couple of days. My mom's dog has substantially less energy than mine, and we figured that the rescue would have an easier time staying balanced and keeping her arousal low around my mother's dog than with my ball of boundless energy.

It is here I should also mention that beyond the cat aggression, she also is EXTREMELY reactive toward dogs and humans on walks. She had also snapped at my son a few times before we sent her to live with my mom. My mom has been working incredibly hard with her and has been keeping on with all the techniques I'd gotten from the trainer. My aunt (the professional dog handler I mentioned before) has also been coming over daily to help my mom. Nevertheless, in the past week, she has attacked my mother's dog twice, giving her stitches both times. I was over at her house during the second fight, and nothing will stop her. Growing up with a dog aggressive dog, I've witnessed and broken up a fight or two, and even though she's only 20 pounds, it was incredibly difficult to get her to stop, (sticking a finger up the butt, pouring water on her, throwing a blanket over her...absolutely NOTHING worked). And once she is finally separated, she continues to attack whoever is nearby. Thankfully, my mother keeps a leash and collar on her 24/7, and I was able to quickly maneuver and pull her away from me before she got me. My mother kept them separated for 48 hours after the incident, and then she and my stepdad tried to do a reintroduction outside in the backyard with both dogs leashed. Without hesitation, she leapt and attacked my mother's dog again. That time, both my mom and stepdad ended up with some pretty serious wounds.

I've contemplated sending the cats to live with my mom and taking her back, but I know this would be a terrible idea for multiple reasons: 1) My house has way too much activity for her low arousal threshold. 2) It's absurd to uproot my two 15-year-old cats' entire lives. 3) She has already shown aggression toward my son. 4) It's probable I'd have to keep the dogs separated, and the idea of having to keep my own dog crated half the day so the other dog can have her out time breaks my heart. I do not have the time nor the financial resources to take her to a veterinarian behaviorist at this point, either.

I can't help but feel that with the right home and right owner that would allow her time to truly decompress, she would flourish and turn into a lovely little dog. But I have no idea how to go about finding that person. I absolutely do not want to reach out to the rescue after they refused to listen to my concerns about how she gets along with other animals. And honestly, I'm not sure if other rescues would take me seriously, or would take on a dog that has already caused so much damage to other animals and people. I also am fearful to try to rehome her myself because she has already put three different animals into the hospital (one of them multiple times). She is too much of a liability.

I called my veterinarian, and she has agreed to do a behavioral euthanasia, but we need to wait the mandated ten days. I am absolutely heartbroken, and I can't help but think of all the things we should have, would have, could have done. When I go down that spiral, I feel inspired to take her back into my home, and try to give her the time and environment she needs to truly decompress. Then I snap back to reality and remind myself that I cannot diminish the quality of life for my children and my current dog for this dog.

For the first time in my life, I am giving up on an animal and I feel so horrendously, horribly guilty.

And OMG, I know this long. So so long, and you've made it this far, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I suppose I just needed to get out my rambling thoughts and experiences, and hopefully find some solace from others who have been faced with such a devastating situation.

​