I'm a new member to the forum, and this is my first post. I'm posting this hoping that someone here can help me understand something bad that happened with a new dog.
First, I've been round German Shepherds my whole life. I've raised them, lived with them, trusted them as devoted familily pets. I am not new to the breed.
One of my dogs is dying with a live problem, and my wife is recently diagnosed with a serious illness, so we decided to get another dog so there would be some overlap when the older one passes away.
We had the opportunity to take a 3 year old male, AKC registered and bred by a very highly regarded world-class Schutzhund breeder in Nashville TN. The dog had spend the past year learning tracking, and not Schutzhund. I really don't know his training history prior to that.
We had the dog for a week, and he was wonderful, a virtual angel. He obeyed perfectly, and got along with the other 2 dogs (Labradors) great. He was close, affectionate, he slept in the house next to my bed. Everthing was going great.
Then last Sunday, late in the evening, as we were going to bed, he was sitting next to my chair. My wife scooted over on the couch closer to my chair to show me a picture of him on her phone. And Bam! without warning, without a sound, in complete silence, the dog attacked her. I didn't even realize what had happened at first, and she didn't either. After she yelled, he let go, and then went in again to her leg. I yelled, threw the big recliner, yelling "no" and he let go, I got my pistol, and tried to get a shot at it. It ran away and hid in the bedroom, my wife screaming at me not to shoot it. So I locked it in the bedroom, then proceeded to wrap my wife's leg with paper towels and lots of duct tape to get the guts back in her leg and stop the voracious bleeding.
My wife is recovering, and we don't think she will lose her leg. I immediately took the dog away to a kennel when I got back from the hospital the next day.
Of course we are both just in agony, physical and mental, not understanding what went wrong. We loved the dog. He was sweet and perfect, never a single growl or hint of aggression the whole time he was with us. No history from the previous owner, and I can only just assume the breeder would never have released a dog with an agression problem.
This dog turned for no apparent reason, no warning, not a sound, and tried to bite off the leg of the woman that fed it. Does anyone have any idea what went wrong? Is it just simply true that the old wives tale about never being able to trust a German Shepherd is true?
The dog will never come back here, it's simply too dangerous. But we would like to have some understanding of what happened, if there is any.
Thanks in advance for reading through my story.
Garret
First, I've been round German Shepherds my whole life. I've raised them, lived with them, trusted them as devoted familily pets. I am not new to the breed.
One of my dogs is dying with a live problem, and my wife is recently diagnosed with a serious illness, so we decided to get another dog so there would be some overlap when the older one passes away.
We had the opportunity to take a 3 year old male, AKC registered and bred by a very highly regarded world-class Schutzhund breeder in Nashville TN. The dog had spend the past year learning tracking, and not Schutzhund. I really don't know his training history prior to that.
We had the dog for a week, and he was wonderful, a virtual angel. He obeyed perfectly, and got along with the other 2 dogs (Labradors) great. He was close, affectionate, he slept in the house next to my bed. Everthing was going great.
Then last Sunday, late in the evening, as we were going to bed, he was sitting next to my chair. My wife scooted over on the couch closer to my chair to show me a picture of him on her phone. And Bam! without warning, without a sound, in complete silence, the dog attacked her. I didn't even realize what had happened at first, and she didn't either. After she yelled, he let go, and then went in again to her leg. I yelled, threw the big recliner, yelling "no" and he let go, I got my pistol, and tried to get a shot at it. It ran away and hid in the bedroom, my wife screaming at me not to shoot it. So I locked it in the bedroom, then proceeded to wrap my wife's leg with paper towels and lots of duct tape to get the guts back in her leg and stop the voracious bleeding.
My wife is recovering, and we don't think she will lose her leg. I immediately took the dog away to a kennel when I got back from the hospital the next day.
Of course we are both just in agony, physical and mental, not understanding what went wrong. We loved the dog. He was sweet and perfect, never a single growl or hint of aggression the whole time he was with us. No history from the previous owner, and I can only just assume the breeder would never have released a dog with an agression problem.
This dog turned for no apparent reason, no warning, not a sound, and tried to bite off the leg of the woman that fed it. Does anyone have any idea what went wrong? Is it just simply true that the old wives tale about never being able to trust a German Shepherd is true?
The dog will never come back here, it's simply too dangerous. But we would like to have some understanding of what happened, if there is any.
Thanks in advance for reading through my story.
Garret