Some years ago, a Corgi rescue organization asked permission to reprint a post I wrote for a Yahoo forum on their website.<\/p>\n
They folded my post into an article they published<\/a> for people who wonder if Corgis are a good breed for families with children.<\/p>\n Every once in awhile I get emails from people who have read the article. Unfortunately, most of them come from people who have realized, too late, that they have a heart-breaking problem on their hands.<\/p>\n I got one of those this weekend. Woman’s Corgi bit her three-year-old daughter on the face. The plastic surgeon is hopeful that the scars won’t be too bad.<\/p>\n These emails share something else in common: between the lines, what people want is for me to show them how to make it better.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, there is no way to make it better.<\/p>\n Once a dog has snapped at someone, let alone bitten, your options are very limited. If you’ve purchased the dog from a “reputable breeder,” you can probably ship the dog back. You’ll be out whatever you paid for the dog, but at least the problem is no longer yours.<\/p>\n If you got the dog from a “backyard breeder” (someone you found in the classifieds, for example) or a pet shop, or a neighbor whose dog had puppies, things are much more grim.<\/p>\n You can try to find a behaviorist who can help you learn to modify the behavior. Unfortunately, that’s no panacea. If you happen to choose a lousy behaviorist, you may end up with a dog that is more aggressive and less predictable than before.<\/p>\n Behaviorists cost money.<\/p>\n Behaviorists also don’t actually “fix” a dog. They help you learn how to modify a dog’s behavior. You are going to have to do a lot of work. It’s going to take time, consistency, and focus.<\/p>\n And no matter how much work you do, you can’t erase the fact that your dog has bitten. You can’t ever leave your dog unsupervised around children, for example.<\/p>\n So you’ll end up sinking money and time into a situation that, at best, is somewhat manageable.<\/p>\n Oh, and by the way, you may be in for another expensive surprise when it’s time for you to renew your homeowner’s insurance policy.<\/p>\n Hopefully you’ve got the cash on hand to self-insure.<\/p>\n Your only other option, sadly, is to have the dog put to sleep. Rescue organizations won’t take dogs that have bitten (they are glutted with dogs that haven’t bitten — and taking a dog that has bitten opens them to liabilities, should the dog bite again).<\/p>\n Unfortunately, people really really don’t want to hear this. When I wrote to the woman who last emailed me, I got an angry email back, accusing me of being cruel.<\/p>\n Cruel?<\/p>\n Give me a break. Cruel would have been to tell her she’s an idiot for not getting her dog neutered, for failing to train the dog properly in the first place, for allowing a dog that had begun to snap anywhere near her children.<\/p>\n Cruel would be asking her what kind of a mother would keep a dog in her home after it had bitten her daughter’s face.<\/p>\n Cruel, yeah, I could have been cruel. But I wasn’t.<\/p>\n Here’s how she closed her email to me:<\/p>\n I would hate to hear your response to someone you knew and really cared for.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, that is cruel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some years ago, a Corgi rescue organization asked permission to reprint a post I wrote for a Yahoo forum on their website. They folded my post into an article they published for people who wonder if Corgis are a good … Continue reading