When there is no “Fix” “Safe”, but not safe enough

It’s an incredibly sad day for me.  It is with a very heavy heart and a lot of trepidation that I share this with our community.     I have been struggling with a dog that has been fear aggressive for a long time. She was attacked by another dog many years ago.  From that experience, she became horribly leery of other dogs and has decided that the way to deal with her fear is with aggression. She wants to get them first before they can get to her.

A few years ago, she went after another one of my own dogs and did some substantial damage to her.  I was in shock since the two of them had been best friends and played every day.  

I have felt like I have been able to determine ahead of time the dogs that scare her, because it is not every dog that bothers her.  I know exactly what her triggers are.  

Management has been the rule of thumb every day, every minute. I don’t take her places unless it is far out in the woods.   I have turned my house into a management fortress so she doesn’t have access to Lexi, the dog she hates.  Isabella is threatened by Lexi because Lexi has a very outgoing, strong and confident personality.  Isabella does not.  

I have looked for appropriate homes for her with no other dogs and a fenced yard, with someone that understands her and realizes that this is PTSD for Isabella.   This is not something that can be “socialized” away.  I have done all the therapies you can imagine.  After all, this I what I do for a living.

It has been continual stress for me to manage them so they don’t have a confrontation again.  They have gotten good enough that if I do make a management mistake, they both go immediately to their own crates.  

Isabella has become self destructive.  She has chewed hair off of different parts of her body and I put her on medication to help with her fears.

But, today, a situation has made me make the decision to put her down.  We were heading out of town and all my dogs were loaded in the van except for Isabella. I stepped out the front door to see if anyone was coming and there was not. So, I let her run to the van since she always does that and doesn’t want to be left behind.  In that moment, a runner came around the corner with her dog and Isabella went after her dog.  While the physical damages were not severe, it doesn’t matter. The damages to everyone’s heart and soul are unforgiveable. 

This was horrifying for everyone – the woman, her dog, my dog, and me.  It has come the time that I must face that I cannot fix Isabella, and that she has is too dangerous to live a happy life.  

I deal with this almost every day with my clients.  Many choose to commit to a lifetime of management.  All I can say is that I live/breathe and think dogs all the time, all day long, everyday doing what I do.  And I slip up a moment of management with this result. 

This is an extremely hard and overwhelming decision for anyone to make, but there comes a time when all the fixes in the world don’t work. I am sharing this with you now, so that you will not be in the same situation and that you can learn from this experience of mine.  I have the extreme skills to anticipate management issues, and yet, in one split second, I let my guard down.