 Barked: Wed Nov 30, '11 7:04pm PST |
 | |  | | The first was a boy I was babysitting. We never really got a straight answer as to what exactly happened. He had been messing around with Tyson's food bowl all day but Tyson doesn't resource guard except against our naughty pup who tries to steal from his bowl. Also, he and Tyson were playing ball. Tyson LOVES playing ball and will do it until he is in pain from exertion (arthritis). One of the stories that the boy told was that he had, once again, been playing with Tyson's bowl and he snapped. The other was that he had been playing ball with Tyson, Tyson had jumped up to get it and missed. When Tyson jumps up to get a ball, he isn't very steady as he is VERY well trained not to jump on people. Between the two stories, I thought that the second was more in-line with his personality and my experience with his behavior. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten accidentally scratched from him losing his balance from jumping for the ball. If we're sitting on the sofa while having him chase the balls, we can pretend to bury the balls in the sofa and he'll become shark dog to get it while not "jumping up". When I say shark dog, think of the whales that come onto the landings at Sea World on their bellies. When the cops came that time, Tyson had actually greeted them at the door with me. He had on his normal grin, didn't leave the front door until given permission and really loved up on them. After putting him through a few moves and talking to them about the two different stories the boy had given, they decided to just leave it at that. I had to virtually hunt down the boys parents in my effort to find out how he was and offer to pay for any medical bills. They didn't need any assistance with the medical bills as the boy qualified for medicaid. That incident was 2 or 3 years ago. Since then, Tyson has played with and been around many, many kids and not shown any aggression other then warning growls. If he were to growl at child (not my kids), he got put in a time-out or we left wherever we were. It was almost always because the child was being obnoxious (in his face or jacking with his bad leg). That happened probably a handful of times total. The growling at my kids usually ended up with me telling him to leave him alone and him either on my bed, in the kennel (we've only just gotten it within the last 6 months) or laying down right next to me. We have a rule that when the dogs are in the kennel that they are to be left alone as that is their bedroom and they want alone time.
The kennel to which I am speaking of is 48in long by 30in wide by 33 in high. I had gotten it so that the greyhound mix we were caring for could stand all the way up in it. It ended up being so large we could put both dogs in at the same time.
I know that I'm giving a lot of information but, to get help, it's better to give too much as opposed to not enough. |  |  | |  |
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You know what went wrong and I commend you for it. Most people would blame the dog and get rid of the dog. What was the first bite involving. You say this was his second strike. Has he bit a child previously?
