Learning from Others' Mistakes

This past week has been very tough on me, personally. My husband and I have friends who have had a dog for about two and a half years, who they adopted from a shelter when he was a puppy. At the time they adopted him, they had lots of time to spend with him and did a great job raising him as a puppy. Understandably, however, things change and lives get busier. They got married a few months after adopting him and had their first baby last year.

I vividly remember visiting them in the hospital when she was born and asking how they were planning to introduce the baby to the dog. It seemed like they had done some research and had a good plan in place, including sending blankets home with her parents so that the dog could get the new baby's scent before she even arrived home.

The first nine months of baby + dog went really, really smoothly. They could've been in some of those pictures of the emails that get sent around where the baby is sleeping on the dog - he loves her and protected her. Because of the apparent success of the match and having a much busier schedule now, our friends neglected to work on training the dog properly to be around moving children.

In the past couple of months, they have noticed that the dog is slightly food aggressive and it has become quite problematic because the baby is now starting to move all about the house and play with everything. The dog, not understanding what on earth is going on, is suddenly very confused and more aggressive when the baby gets near his food.

The ensuing incidents were much too close of a call for our friends, and animal services was called. The dog that we've all gotten to know and love so much is now at the shelter - if our friends are unable to find him a new home in the next few days, he will be put down.

I share this story not to try to get you to adopt him or to break your heart, but to open your eyes to the necessary work involved in being a responsible dog owner. The incidents of the past week have certainly opened my eyes to what we need to do when my husband and I are ready to have children - heck, even the training that we should be doing now to help Eddie become a "better" dog. I urge you to please share this story with friends so that we can keep dogs out of the shelter and from being euthenized.