Yes... it's the owner not the dog... BUT...

This, is a Cane Corso:

Cane Corsos are some of the biggest, strongest, and by their very genetic nature, most territorial and protective dogs. They are bred to hunt large game, and to catch and herd straying swine and cattle.

Like other large "catch dogs", they can literally catch a large livestock animal, and either kill them, or hold them on the ground waiting for their handler to come and retrieve the caught prey.

This, is a Presa Canario:

Presa Canarios are a very different breed in many ways, but they descend from the same basic genetic foundation (molosser) and are also large catch dogs. They have the same size, strength, and drives as the Cane Corso. They are big, strong, highly territorial, and highly protective.

How big is "big"? 

Those chains and big heavy collars aren't for show. Males of either breed can easily exceed 150lbs, and standing on their hind legs can easily look a 6'2" man like myself directly in the eyes.

Corsos and Presas can be great dogs. Loyal, affectionate, loving, fun...

...For the right people, in the right environment...

A few days ago, a couple of Cane Corsos killed a jogger in Michigan. It came out that those same dogs had attacked other people in the neighborhood over the course of two years, but nothing had been done.

A few years ago, actor Ving Rhames had a pair of Presa Canarios, that killed his gardener.

This Michigan incident is the latest in a long series of reports from the last few years where Cane Corsos, or Presa Canarios have killed pedestrians, joggers, yard or service workers etc...

No, it's not the dogs fault. Yes, it is their owners fault.

But... not for the reasons some "dog people" like to champion.

Yes, there is no such thing as inherently bad or dangerous dog, or an inherently bad or dangerous breed...

...except that isn't ENTIRELY true.

As is usually the case, the truth is more complicated.

All dogs, no matter the breed, are potentially dangerous, because they are DOGS. YOU may consider them a member of your family, but they are not children, they are DOGS.

They are little... or not so little... balls of muscle and instincts with teeth and claws; and under the right... or wrong... circumstances, they can be dangerous.

Of course, abuse or ill treatment can make any dog MORE dangerous...

...but it doesn't take abuse to make a dog dangerous. It just takes the wrong situation, or the wrong environment, or the wrong owner who doesn't know how to handle their dog.

Some breeds of dogs need special handling or they will be dangerous, simply because of their natures. Their size, their strength, their basic breed characteristics, and their instincts.

Big, strong, territorial dogs with high prey drive or high protective drive, ARE dangerous; if not kept in the right environments, and trained, socialized, and exercised and handled properly; by the right sort of people who can properly manage these types of dogs.

Cane Corsos and Presa Canarios are working dogs. They NEED to work. They need to work off their energy, and they NEED to follow their "mission" instinct.

In military parlance, they are extremely motivated and mission oriented, and their mission is to PROTECT THE HERD AND THE FIELDS AND THE PACK AT ALL COSTS.

They're very good at it. It's what they're bred for.

They are NOT dogs that you can have in a busy urban or suburban area. They'll be miserable, and they'll make you miserable. They'll literally be driven crazy by the constant influx of strangers and "threats".

Dogs like this need room to run. More importantly, they need defensive depth. They need a big buffer zone for "their" territory. They need room to back off if they feel threatened.

If they don't have room, unless they are properly trained and handled, and their handler is present and managing the situation properly; in close quarters they WILL feel threatened, and they WILL get aggressively protective.

These are SERIOUS working dogs.

However, for a certain class of asshole, they have become "fashionable" over the past few years, because they're so big, so strong, and so "dangerous". Rottweilers and "pit bulls" are becoming more common, and certain types of assholes just want to have the biggest, baddest dog on the block.

Another type of asshole doesn't recognize that dogs are actually animals, rather than just furry people. Or that the dog that is so cuddly and great with them, is an entirely different beast when it comes to strangers and their "mission" or their territory.

Dogs are NOT fashion accessories. Nor are they furry children. They are living beings, with their own needs and drives, not simply extensions or projections of their owners.

Most people are simply not mentally and emotionally prepared to, or even physically able to, properly handle Cane Corsos and Presa Canarios (or for that matter most other large dogs); nor do most people have the proper environment to keep them.

I have been handling and training large dogs since I was a child, and I'm a VERY large, strong, and dominant man..  I've also made a habit of rehabilitating troubled and abused large breed dogs, particularly rottweilers and other molosser variants. My family and I love "politically incorrect" dogs, and have had great experiences with our wonderful rescued dogs, that others had considered "dangerous" or "unstable" because of prior abuse.

Even given all that however, unless I raised them myself, or knew the person who raised them, I would not accept a Presa or a Corso into my pack. Not a chance in hell in fact.

Even if I'd raised one from a pup, if I didn't have a big, FULLY FENCED and secure property, with neighbors who also knew how to handle and deal with big, protective dogs, I wouldn't even consider having a Corso or a Presa.

 For people who like and want "big dogs", and can deal with a confident, physical, and protective dog, I'm always a fan of rotties.

Jayne, my rott/amstaff male, is 130lbs of muscle, teeth, and love. He's the worlds largest lap dog when I let him get away with it.

We like to joke that he might be "dangerous" or "aggressive" if he weren't too busy looking for comfort and cuddles, and too lazy to chase after trouble.

My other rott mix is a 65lb rott/redbone coonhound bitch, and her coonhound side sometimes causes her to follow her nose into trouble, but she's still a total affection slut.

No matter what though, you still need to be prepared and able to handle large dogs.

What do I mean when I say "prepared and able to handle large dogs" ?

Well, let me use myself as an example. Yes, I'm a big strong man, but that's not the most important thing. The most important things are emotional and mental preparedness.

You MUST be the alpha, and you must be prepared to do what is necessary to deal with your dog.

I can make Jayne cower and roll with a strong look... and he loves and respects me, and I love and respect him, enough that I rarely have to.

When he does get upset, or over excited, I can usually calm him down with a word or a touch, or at worst a strong tone of command and a physical reminder.

USUALLY... but not always...

Jayne is well trained, and well socialized, with an even... in fact a laid back and lazy... demeanor and temperament; but like all dogs, he can get excited, or anxious, or agitated. Very rarely, again like any other dog, he can get excited or agitated enough that he can be difficult to handle.

If he gets so excited or scared that his instincts overwhelm his pack conditioning, I'm big enough, strong enough, and mean enough to back him down, and hold him down if necessary.

And he knows it...

If as an absolute last resort he is driven mad by something, and I am unable to back him down, calm him down, get him back under control or otherwise safely restrain or isolate him from those he could harm... I am prepared to kill him.

And he knows it...

It may sound silly to you, but anyone who works with dogs will understand this... A properly socialized dog knows when you are bigger and stronger and meaner than he is... he especially knows whether you're willing to kill him if you have to. That's how their world works.

Understand, I have raised Jayne from first separation, and love this dog as a member of my own family... but I also recognize a dog is a dog, not a child; and 130lbs of out of control and maddened muscle and teeth is a danger that must be brought under control or stopped, by whatever means necessary.

When you own big dogs... that's what you MUST understand, and be prepared for. If you are not, you have NO DAMN BUSINESS owning a big dog.

Bad owners make for bad outcomes, but so do bad caregivers

Today Jennifer posted about a tough case concerning euthanizing a pit bull.

The details of the issue are over there. I happen to agree with her that yes, that particularly pit bull should be put down because of the extreme aggression he showed towards that boy. A dog who mauls the face of a 4-year-old is probably not going to be rehabilitated and in the mean time is a threat to those who would even attempt.

Is it the dog's fault? No. Does it still need to happen? Yes.

That being said... let's go into exactly WHO is at fault here.

It's certainly not the boy, who is too young to fully understand why what he did was dangerous.

It's not the dog, who followed a mixture of instincts and training.

Everyone KNOWS by now to blame the owner for lack of training, bad socialization, being a horrible human being, etc. They're certainly to blame for the dog's behavior.

However, in this particular instance there is someone else who is at fault.

There's the parents, for not at least somewhat teaching the child how to deal with pets, though given how little he was who knows how much of it would stick yet. However, their fault pales in comparison to...

WHAT THE HELL KIND OF MORON TAKES A CHILD SHE'S BABYSITTING INTO A YARD WITH A DOG (CHAINED OR NO) WHO KILLED ONE OF HER DOGS THE WEEK BEFORE?!?!?!?!

This is obviously a rather extreme example of negligence but I see a much more subtle form of her assumptions on a continuing basis.

There is no such thing as a completely child-safe dog.

Let me repeat that:

There is no such thing as a completely child-safe dog.

I don't care how wonderful Muffin is with children. Muffin has a bad day, is in pain, is exhausted, or someone finds her particular button to push and Muffin is just as capable of biting a child as any other dog.

Let me give you an example.

The Boy is now crawling around the house. We still have two dogs, Jayne and Zoe. Jayne is 130 lbs of Staffordshire/ Rottweiler mix and Zoe is 55 lbs of Rottweiler/ Coonhound mix. Both of them are generally good with kids, our kids, other people's kids, doesn't matter. They've repeatedly shown the ability to handle everything from toddler on up.

Zoe spoils the boy. She lets him crawl on her, hug her, pull her tail, treat her like an obstacle course... she takes all of it. Unless he pulls her ears. Then it's game over. She runs off.

Jayne, having figured out early that baby hands mean poking and prodding, generally avoids the boy. He's not mean about it, he'd just rather not be within reach of those hands. He either moves, or, if he's on his doggie bed, will give a nice loud single bark which never fails to make the baby stop his forward progress (and also ends in screaming on the baby's part, but that just means it's effective).

Sometimes though when either dog tries to escape the kiddo gets it in his head to follow and continue his pestering. This is where things get hairy.

Half the time the dogs will run to me for protection. The other half is when the growling starts.

It's my job as the caregiver to make sure the growling never happens. The dogs have already clearly defined their boundaries for the boy, it's my job to make sure he respects them. Why?

Because I'm the adult damnit.

I'm slowly teaching the kiddo what not to do around dogs, but he's little and doesn't have experience or impulse control. Every moment he spends around the dogs needs to be supervised. That will last until he's old enough to have gotten enough experience with THESE dogs to understand what is okay and what isn't okay.

Notice I make a differentiation between these dogs and other dogs. That's because I don't know anyone else's dogs well enough to leave my child anywhere near unsupervised while he's around them.

It's also my responsibility to teach my children enough about how to deal with strange animals so they don't do something stupid that gets them injured.

Over the summer I heard Jayne barking really intensely in the back yard. I went out to see what was happening.

I found a group of boys throwing rocks at him from the other side of the fence.

It's a testament to Jayne's extreme laziness and inability to jump even a 4 foot fence that these boys were unscathed. Well, that's before I lit into them about how dangerous and cruel what they were doing was, and how with any other dog it might get them killed.

Jayne was still wagging his tail, God bless 'em. If he'd been another dog with a lower pain tolerance and capable of jumping the fence he'd already have been put down.

(I never caught them doing it again, and I watched for it to happen.)

So what could have prevented this mauling in the first place?

1. Training and socializing the dog properly.
2. Training the child properly to deal with unfamiliar animals, i.e. don't approach dogs you don't know without the owner handling the introduction.
3. Properly supervising the child in case their impulse control and judgment skills are not adequate.

If any one of these had happened no one would be debating whether or not to euthanize the dog, and that poor boy wouldn't be scarred for life at 4 years old.

It's not the dog's fault or the boy's fault, but they're both suffering for the stupidity of those in charge of them.

Mel

Lessons baby boy has been learning from the doggies

Evidently the boy thinks he's a puppy.

To be fair, he and the doggies move on all fours instead of two legs, so he might have a point.

Lessons the boy has picked up from the doggies:
1. An uncovered toilet bowl is for playing and, ideally, for splashing water onto the formerly clean and dry bathroom floor.
2. If the doggies congregate at the door Grandpa is home. Paying attention to you is Grandpa's only purpose; make sure to remind him as loudly as possible should he neglect to pay attention to you the minute he walks through the door.
3. An open door is an opportunity to escape. Never miss an opportunity to go through the open door for dirt and wonderful things to roll in are on the other side.
4. The fridge is a magic place where food comes from. Should a two-legged open the fridge door, make sure you hurry so you can take a peek inside and possibly claim something for yourself.
5. Food found on the floor is the best food.
6. Packaged food left on the table is just waiting for you to grab it and breach its packaging. This applies to both foods you are normally given (crackers) and food Mommy keeps away from you (bouillon cubes). Wait until Mommy's back is turned for maximum impact.
7. Bathroom doors are never to be closed. Ever. Someone attempting to use the bathroom by themselves is clearly rejecting you.
8. If it's not edible, it's chewable or bite-able. No exceptions.
9. If your food does not come from Mommy or Daddy's plate, you're being denied adequate nourishment. Complain loudly. Conversely...
10. If it's in the dog feeder, it's clearly edible and tasty. After all, the other four-leggeds eat it and they're fine.
11. If a two-legged should eat at the table without you, make sure you go beg with the other four-leggeds.
12. Dirty pots, dishes, and leftovers left on the floor are up for grabs. Make sure you hurry so you can attempt to push the other four-leggeds away from whatever they're eating.

 And yes, the fact that he hasn't been bitten for attempting all of the above is proof that we have the most awesome dogs ever.

Mel

Alright, so, good news has settled in, now the bad news.

So... I didn't want this to "compete for the headline" with our happy news, our son...

But now that he's home, and healthy, and things are going OK... it's time to say there's some bad news too.

So... the first bad news is kinda old news...

It turns out, that when I fell on the ice back in February, I broke my wrist (multiple stress fractures in the bone ends surrounding the joint), ruptured a tendon, and had some additional nerve damage.

... and it isn't healing right.

Lotta pain here. Has been since that night... should have been healing... isn't... probably because I've been sick, and the aftereffects of the endocrine cancer and... all that stuff...

I might be able to get it fixed, with proper orthopedic care, which we can't afford right now... And it might just get better on it's own. I'm doing what I can to help and support that, the right exercises etc... This isn't exactly my first severe musculoskeletal injury. I have a history of "crippling" injuries, that I've come back from... not perfectly fine, but still capable.

We'll see...


Second bad news... also kinda old news... we're in serious trouble moneywise... that's life... I've got some great prospects, but nobody is pulling the trigger. I've interviewed for a bunch of jobs, and they either went to internal candidates, or they just held off hiring... I could get another consulting gig today if I wanted 100% travel, but I've got a newborn, and I've been sick... that's not gonna work. Now, with the baby coming early, all the baby stuff, all the medical bills... Yeah...

I dunno... there's still some great prospects, I've got a very promising interview on Thursday... We'll see...

The really painful stuff though... the hardest stuff...

Wash is gone... he's been gone a couple months now, we've had to accept, he's just gone... and that's... A member of our family has disappeared... is gone.

And then... just as we were bringing the newest member of our family home...

Eva jumped the fence, and ran out into the road... and under the wheels of a truck.

She died instantly...

So, we lost another member of our family...

And yeah... that REALLY hurts...

But, at least we've got a new member of the family to have some joy over... A LOT of joy... Thank God for that.

Well... that was ironic, irritating, and kinda painful

Top Tip: 

When you have a dog whose head is as big as yours, it is probably a bad idea to wake him up from a sound sleep in your lap, by suddenly bending down and quickly picking him up off that lap. He may be startled, jerk his head sharply, and snap his muzzle shut...

Ironic moment? :

Doing so literally minutes after hitting "publish" on a post about how cute and cuddly your dogs are.

It looks worse than it is... It's too big to leave without a closure, and deep enough to damage some tissue; but it's not really deep, and it's too small to bother with stitches.

Given the tear, the shape of it, and the flap... yeah, that's probably gonna scar.

Oh well, another one for the collection. Not the worst one... not even the worst one on my face so...

Anyway, It didn't really hurt when he did it, but it's kinda irritating now. Probably gonna bruise tomorrow too... he hit my face pretty hard when he jerked his head, and that whole side of my face is feeling kinda tender right now.

Yes, I have both topical and oral antibiotics. I don't expect I'll need the orals.

Oh and no, Jayne didn't actually bite me on purpose, it was my own fault for being stupid. He literally startled and jerked his head and rammed his teeth into my face by reflex.

If he'd actually been trying to bite me, I wouldn't have a face anymore to take a picture of.

...Seriously, Jayne is half rottie, half staffie, 130lbs of solid muscle and teeth, and his head and neck are literally as big as mine. If he actually bit me on purpose, I'd be hamburger... and utterly destroyed about having had to shoot my dog.

Eva Loves Cuddles

What you can't see in the pic above, is that Eva is lying on top of Wash, while tucking herself into my armpit; and Zoe is curled around my back. Jayne is there just looking on.

That one was from tonight... I kicked her out of her "tucked into the armpit" position, which Jayne promptly took up (but he doesn't fit under my arm, he just takes up most of my lap with his head). So she crawled over the back of the couch, laid on top of Jayne, and put her head into the side of my neck. 

Badger also loves cuddles, but, being a cat, he is harder to capture in "cuddle position"; at least while you can still see his head, and not just his gigantic cat ass.

Can you believe that this skinny scraggly thing from seven months ago, is the same cat:

Eva Update

Eva escaped the yard today.

I noticed by about 3 minutes after the breach of security.

I'd made the ultimate mommy/ dog owner mistake: sitting down with my afternoon meds and coffee. Everyone knows this is asking for trouble.

But Jayne was doing one of his "emergency" barks (he has a full range of vocal expressions) that screams "human come help now."

I found Eva at our fence line playing with a black retriever mix just about her size. And she was playing. He was an alpha even (I've seen him play with Wash, our escape artist, before) and she play submitted properly.

Not snarling. No menacing bark. No fearful behavior. None of the behavior that got her sent to us in the first place.

She might as well have been a well-socialized, puppy-class raised, normal dog at the dog park. Or with Wash at the dog-friendly bar in town. She was being that good, at least for the all of ten minutes before I had her wrangled back on to the property.

Heart attack averted and it seems like, at least mostly, mission accomplished. From badly socialized and violent to socialized and friendly.

I still wouldn't put her in a house with the original dog in question (who doesn't even like us apparently) but an equally sized or bigger alpha dog of a bully breed... sure.

Hell, at least point she may be safe with just an owner who knows how to dominate her ala Cesar Milan as long as he kept her properly exercised and socialized and watched her carefully at the dog park.

Seems the fostering process is working out properly.

Now I just need to figure out how she breached the fence and see if she's figured out she can jump the fence because that's a whole 'nother issue.

Mel

There's a Reason Why Boxers Are So Damn Cute

It's so you don't kill them.

Not that I was planning to.

Anyway... this is Eva; and this is the post we've been meaning to write about her for the past few months.

Eva is a half pitbull, half Boxer pup. She's about 17 months old, about 70lbs, and she knows how to work those Boxer eyes.

Eva is the formerly-only dog of a friend of ours and she's staying with us for rehabilitation. He'd adopted her from a family who could no longer take care of her and she was doing just fine. She's very good with people, very kind, doesn't snarl, doesn't bite, and she didn't cause any problems at all.

With people.

Another dog moved into the household, a smaller mutt. They had a couple of... incidents.

The problem with bully breed dogs is that they're extremely pack- and hierarchy-oriented. Eva had never been taught pack rules and the other dog refused to back down. To make it worse Eva's natural place in a pack order is Beta Female. When there is no true Alpha present, Beta Females will attempt to fill the power vacuum. They almost always do so in a bad, bad way.

Eva had no "off" button. She didn't know when to back down in a dominance challenge. So, when the other dog refused to back down Eva wouldn't back down either. She nearly killed the other dog.

Turns out the family our friend had adopted from had lied about Eva's origins. When he took her to the vet he was told her spaying scar was in the place reserved for "early" spays. Eva was most likely spayed in a dog shelter at the age of 3-4 weeks. There's only one way that happens; if Eva and her littermates were found abandoned. At the shelter they would have isolated her from other dogs because of her pitbull heritage.

Yes, it's completely wrong. Yes, that actually makes things much worse. But that's what the local shelters do.

So up until the age of 12 months or so Eva had never been socialized with or lived with another dog. When introduced to the new dog she clumsily attempted to do what her instincts told her with no concept of how to dominate properly. That the other dog wouldn't give in just made things much worse.

The other dog couldn't go so that put Eva's owner into a very tight spot trying to find her another home. They tried for a month to find her another home to no avail.

Y'all know we have a soft spot for politically incorrect dogs.

We offered to take her in. Eventually the offer was accepted. We figured at the very least we have enough room to keep her separate from the other dogs if she truly was a threat while other arrangements were made. At best we thought being in a pack would do her good, especially a pack with a large, strong, Alpha Male. After all Jayne vastly outweighs her (130lbs) and is normally a very good Alpha. Jayne also seems to think he's my enforcer. If I use a certain tone with another dog he follows up and "dominates" the other dog to get the point across.

When she came to us we couldn't tell if her excessive violence towards other dogs was innate or could be socialized out of her. We didn't know until we slowly introduced her to the other dogs.

Eva is very much a pack animal. She fit right in.

Oh, there were some rough spots. The first time she attempted to dominate Zoe over a perceived infraction (Zoe is our Omega Female and 10 or 15lbs lighter than Eva) she took a hold of Zoe's ruff and wouldn't let go.

Fortunately Zoe is half Rottweiler so she has a nice thick neck ruff. Also fortunately Zoe is Jayne's "puppy" and he took it kinda personally. Hell, Jayne takes any other dog attempting to instill order in "his" pack kinda personally.

Jayne took a hold of Eva by the neck, forced her off of Zoe, and forced her to the ground. Where she snarled back and tried to escape, unsuccessfully, for about 5 minutes. She finally relented. When she stopped, Jayne stopped.

It was a like a light switch flipped in her head. She "got" it. She understood the hierarchy. It never took so long again.

Since then she's learned to relent quickly. When she's being corrected by Jayne she lets it happen and rolls over immediately. When she corrects Zoe she does so quickly and without excessive force. She's figured out that as Beta Male Wash is the same "level" as she is so she neither submits to or dominates him.

She's mostly figured out this whole pack thing. She plays with and cuddles with the other dogs constantly. Zoe is her BFF.

This is not to say her behavior is perfect. Occasionally she still has a problem where she gets aggressive to the point where there has to be a correction. Usually verbal correction or a squirt of water from a spray bottle is enough to deal with it, but sometimes it comes down to teeth.

About a week ago Chris got collaterally nipped when a dominance fight in a confined space (three dogs all trying to get to master in the same small space at the same time, and they got rough) ended up on top of him (nothing serious, just a consequence of rough play). Blood sometimes gets drawn.

Guess what? Sometimes, that's going to happen when you've got three or four large bully breed dogs living together. One of them snags the others ear, or hooks a cheek, and they bleed.

It's not serious. They're not trying to hurt each other; though sometimes it happens.

It's normal for bully breeds (for all dogs actually, but especially so for bully breeds) to play fight, and challenge aggressively, and sometimes it gets rough enough to draw blood. Sometimes their prey instinct gets overamped. Sometimes they don't have proper bite inhibition (particularly if they were separated from their litter too early).

But they learn. If you're willing to deal with it. If you're willing to train them, and if you've got a strong enough and big enough dog that when the smaller dog doesn't back down, they can take the hit, and then deliver the necessary correction.

Otherwise, your only option is to put the dog down.

We really don't like that option.

Eva is slowly becoming rehabilitated and we (the humans) are doing next to nothing to further this along. We left her in the pack's care and the pack is teaching her how to be a proper dog. She's still very people oriented (she has to have her Master time) but she clearly needs her pack.

She's doing very much better.

However, Eva is still very much a puppy and pitbull and Boxer puppies CHEW.

When I pulled out my sewing machine to make a homemade dog bed tonight I found the foot pedal control's cable in pieces. The pedal was fine, the jack was fine, just the cord in between suffered casualties to the point of being in 5 different pieces (Chris was able to fix it for me pretty easily).

That's not the only thing she's chewed but I've mostly be able to turn her onto firehose and nylon toys. As you can see she's discovered Zoe's favorite toy, the nylon duckie. Good thing we have a half dozen of the damn things.

She's also apparently completely boneless (the other day she was licking the front of Chris's face, while at the same time, her tail was hitting him on the back of the head)...

...except for her tail.  

Anyone who thought Wash's tail was a bit too whip-like, well... at least Wash doesn't have Boxer butt. Eva's back end wags starting at the middle of her body so her tail has much better range and a much bigger arc with just as much speed and enthusiasm (and greater mass).

She also knows how to work those eyes and work her "I'm sorry" position. She's way too damn cute and adorable for her own good. And our good, for that matter.

Mel