Tough Decision for our Dog
My wife and I just had to put our 6.5 year old hound mix through BE yesterday afternoon and it devastated us. Hoping posting here will help others with their decision and hopefully be therapeutic and give us closer we made the right decision.
We had him since he was a puppy, about 3 months old, and didn't really have any issues the first couple years. Over the past 3-4 years we had a few aggressive/behavior incidents towards people and some dogs. Incidents included growling/snarling/lunging at dogs on walks, nipping at Rovers who came in the house, growling/snarling during a couple boardings while we were on trips, one bite incident where he was accidently let outside when a stranger was up on the deck (he was inside for a reason but someone opened the door forgetting he was inside). In general, he was just a very anxious dog as well.
He was very loving towards my wife and I and we only let a couple family members around him to help watch him or let him out during this time. My wife and I found out we were pregnant last October, so we knew we were going to have to invest in training or try to re-home before the baby got here.
Well, a couple weeks after finding out we were pregnant, he actually lunged at my Mom in our house and bit her on the face. She had come over and already got in the house and took him on a walk that day. There was no trigger to pinpoint his reaction and she ended up needing stitches. My mom regularly came over to walk and stay with him if we were traveling, so this was a complete shock to us.
We tried for months talking with local humane society, vet and reaching out to bread specific rescues to try to re-home him. We knew we couldn't take the risk of something happening with a new baby in the house, and now our family members who did come around him not feeling comfortable coming over. In the end, we had no luck finding anything and stalled as long as we could until the baby got here.
Just want to end saying it's a very tough situation to deal with and it was not easy on us yesterday afternoon, but in the end we felt we had to look out for the health and safety of our future family. I'm feeling guilt already wishing I could have done something else to help save him, but hoping time will help heal that.