I’ve come upon an incredibly difficult situation as of this week that I’m hoping to get input on from the community.
Our black lab rescue (we got him 6 years ago as a 2 month old pup) has brought us nothing but joy for his entire life living with our family. Over the past six years, he’s been my parents and my dog but as we’ve all moved out, my older brothers married and with kids, he remained the family dog at home. He’s a very loving pup but does at times, have the ability to get aggressive (I.e., barking at the fence when the German Shepherd next door is out and his hard to pull away without fear of him snapping at us). Otherwise, we’ve never had incidents to cause concern.
I have three beautiful nieces - two and one years old - to whom he’s always been very gentle with. At the same token, he’s a 90 lb large dog and sometimes doesn’t know his weight so we’ve always been careful to watch him around the kids, with no incidents to ever arise.
This past Sunday my 2 year old niece was left alone in a room with him. An occurrence not unfamiliar to us nor would ever give us cause to be concerned. As I came out of the bathroom, I heard a very aggressive growl and blood curtling scream. I sprinted into the room to find my 2 year old niece on the ground screaming and crying. I ripped her off the ground and placed her on the kitchen table to find her cheek, lip and under eye badly bleeding and scarred. The skin on her cheek broken. My brother and his wife quickly bundled her up and rushed her to the ER. She was then sent to a children’s hospital as the bite or scratch - we’re not clear still - was so close to her eye they were worried she may need surgery. I’m so happy to now know she’s fine and healing incredibly well. But the site of her face post stitches was beyond nauseating and absolutely heart breaking.
Our lab has NEVER done anything like this before. But we know deep in our hearts the risk of keeping him around is far too large with three little girls and two newborns. After consulting his vet who he has seen since he was a puppy, she unfortunately consulted that euthanizing him was while the hardest option, the most logical. I begged and pleaded my parents not to do this as it was something none of us wanted and he is so incredibly important to me likely above any of my family members. He’s truly my baby.
We’re not sure what caused the incident. We can only go off what my two year old niece has recounted. “I was trying to wake him up to play. He was sleeping.” Regardless, the incident was terrible at all angles and even re-homing him would be a risk of something happening down the road. I also don’t know if re-homing him would have given him the best quality of life. He truly was so happy with our family and comfortable with his lifestyle and surrounding and the familiarity of our home.
We put him down yesterday evening. I held him in my arms as they injected him and he looked back at me to make sure his owner was near. He went peacefully but I am absolutely shattered. I wake up crying. I can’t sleep or eat. I know at the end of the day he was an animal and unpredictable but he had at least 5-6 good years of life left in him. I’m absolutely broken and looking for any source or reassurance, advice or past similar experiences anyone can share to ensure me this was the right choice? Was it?
[link] [comments]
from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/k5q800/putting_dog_down_right_decision/
No comments:
Post a Comment