An interesting topic was brought up today on http://www.thatmutt.com/ on how difficult it has become to adopt an animal and on no kill policies. This was my response to the idea of no kill shelters and rescues. What do you guys think?

My "Bad" dog Pompeii

I think that no kill nation is a nice idea, but I don’t feel that this is very realistic. I’m sure you have encountered TONS of dogs Lindsay, but I imagine you have some kind of policy where you won’t walk dogs with human aggression or bite historys. Also I doubt that people who have dogs that bite don’t often contact you due to the behavior of their dog. As a dog trainer I have been contacted quite a bit for dogs with human reactivity or aggression. I just recently had a client who got a rot mix as a pup, raised it from 8 weeks old. Dog was well socialized with other dogs and people yet was still very insecure and reactive to people. Tried working with the dog to fix these problems. Owners followed all directions. Tried everything they could. One day the dog was left unattended for 5 min outside tied up. A worker friend of the owner walked up the driveway, dog jumped on person, greeting them, person said hi and pet the dog, went to gently push the giant dog off of them, dog reacted bit the guy in the throat and arm, 30 sum stitches later…..now should that family rehome that dog? give it back to the rescue? manage that dog and keep it isolated from everything forever? Some dogs a messed up….they have a few screws loose and I did not hesitate for a second to tell those owners to euthanize that dog. That dog would not live a good life, training could be tried but that dog would probably never be ok. Rehoming that dog would just end up breaking some other families heart when it attacked someone and they would have to make the tough decision.

I adopted a dog that should probably be euthanized. If i didn’t feel i could manage him, i would put him down. No one wants to take in a dog with a serious bite history and most average pet owners are unable to deal with a dog with aggression and bite history. Dogs like this are a liability and its not fair to place these dogs in homes. And that dog bites someone, that family gets sued, ultimately that rescues fault for placing a dog like that, then that family will prolly never get another rescue dog due to the bad experience they had.

Not to discriminate breeds but i feel especially strongly about this with the high profile breeds out there, such as pits, rots, chows etc. only because those dogs already have a bad rap and if rescues are out there adopting human or dog aggressive pits, rots, chows and that dog bites someone or kills someone else’s dog, thats only fueling that fire of how the media and public view those breeds.

Sorry for the crazy long response. Apparently I have alot of opinions about this topic =)