Movies and modern media have a lot to answer for in regards to animal welfare and ‘trendy’ breeds.
You may well have heard of the surge of popularity in dalmatians after 101 Dalmatians hit the cinema, or everybody wanting to own clownfish after Finding Nemo came out, but the movie I will always particularly blame is Hachi: a dog’s tale.
An Akita, if you’ve never met one, is perfectly capable of being a loyal and noble companion, but are frequently described as ‘dominant, aloof, independent’ and ‘not a dog for beginners’. They are even considered a dangerous dog breed in some jurisdictions.
Waitwaitwaitwait, so in Australia you can euthanize a HEALTHY dog just for being potentially agressive? Did he actually hurt someone or did I misread something? Here in germany you aren’t even allowed to euthanize healty animals. Only if they hurt a human/an animal a certain amount of times (I’m not exactly sure how often, but that’s the only reason you are allowed to euthanize them. And if they killed a human. Obviously.). I am just so shocked that this guy didn’t even tried to rehome him or put him in a shelter… Wow, now I’m angry at everything. Especially this owner. And idgaf if he loved him, apparently he didn’t loved him enough to think just a little forward or simply read the Wikipedia-page about Akitas. Fml.
The dog was threatening other family members and actively worse with everyone who was not the owner. They could not accept the risk that rehoming him would result in a human injury.
Putting a dog that is aggressive towards everything except one human into a shelter where it never sees that human again? Not a good idea. We weren’t waiting for the bite to happen, especially not from a large and powerful dog.
And I will euthanise a healthy but aggressive dog over a healthy but timid dog when shelters are full. That is too much risk to expect somebody else to handle, and if he had given it to a shelter at that time, it would still have been euthanised.
I really don’t think that was meant to be a shot at you and your decision, but rather the laws and lack of support to avoid the situation that some other places have
I didn’t interpret it as taking a shot as me, but it’s a decision I stand by anyway.
This decision was made in a rural setting, with limited resources, but even where I am now with more resources there is a growing and frustrating trend of independent rescues, mostly breed-specific that frankly seem to be run by bunny-huggers that want to save everything, no matter the cost, or trying to rehabilitate aggressive dogs which is my professional oppinion should have just been put to sleep, and maintstream shelters will not touch.
Dogs which are so aggressive and reactive that the ‘rescues’ can’t find foster carers for them, that their experiences foster carers can’t handle, so they put them in boarding kennels for weeks at a time while they figure out what to do.
One individual dog had $15,000 spent on it trying to rehabilitate it, between the behaviorist consults, medication, boarding, and shunting it from one end of the country to the other trying to find a suitable foster carer for it. And that one had already bitten a human.
One tried to give me a young doberman, knowing they’re one of my favourite breeds and that I am a vet, but this dog had been ‘failed to train as a guard dog’ and had so many behavioral problems as a result that there was no way I was tackling that project.
Just because you can try, doesn’t always mean you should. Sometimes all your options are bad in one way or another and all you can do is choose the one that minimizes harm. Once the bad decisions are already made, you need to make sure your last one is the best one you can make.
Sometimes it’s better to put time, money, and other resources into saving multiple lower-trouble animals than a single animal with serious health or behavioral issues. If that’s the case, better the animal die easily than battle health issues or be shut up in a cage because it’s too dangerous to take out.
And I think that person questioning the decision missed the part where the dog threatened a woman with a baby.
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