We have two GREAT dogs! Clay is a mix. His dad was full blooded German Shepard and his mom was full blooded Lab. And Mila is a Lab/ Great Dane mix. They have a great time together, but they sometimes play rough. We have a large back yard that is fully fenced in, so they are allowed to play freely, without risk of any other animals coming in or them getting out.
We've never had any problems out of them. When Clay was younger, he chewed on our deck, but that is it. No other problems at all.
This morning about 3:00, I heard Clay barking, a weird bark, it was constant. I remember thinking, "Breathe Clay!". We've had a stray dog coming around so I thought that it must be right at the fence. So I go and flip on the lights and the barking didn't quit, slow down, it's like I never did a thing. So I step outside and the dogs have a cat. By this time my husband is awake and out on the back porch with me. He yells at the dogs and they go quickly under our porch (they always respond so well to my husband) and I go see about the cat. The cat passed right then, at least it wasn't alone, I was right there (not touching it of course). I was so torn up, hubby came and disposed of the cat properly.
Two homes down from us a man has several cats. They are all solid black (the cat that passed was one of his). They are allowed to roam freely (which is illegal in Rutherford County, no dog or cat is allowed to roam free). And they tease the dogs badly. They'll rub up against our chain length fence and sit right at the fence edge. It was quite funny to watch, actually, sly cats!
But now we are worried about aggression issues. They have never shown an ounce of aggression towards anything, us, each other, other animals, etc. We dog sit my mom's dog and my brother-in-laws dog all of the time, and the dogs LOVE them. Plus we have an indoor cat who's 13 and when she ventures outside, they leave her alone. But I'm convinced they are slightly scared of her ;)
I've read that it's normal for animals to attack other animals (especially dogs vs cats/birds/bunnies) especially if they come into the dogs yard/territory (which the cat would have had to have come in, there is no way the dogs could have gotten to it other wise). But still....our kids are young, and I'm 16 weeks pregnant......We just don't know what to do! If we take them to the pound, we are afraid that they'll put them down, which might need to happen. We don't have thousands of dollars to hire someone to come and "re-train" them......
We are stuck....We love our dogs.... We just don't know what to do!
Any thoughts or suggestions or prayers would be much appreciated!!
~Blessings~
1 comment:
Leslie - DO NOT PUT YOUR DOGS DOWN OR GET RID OF THEM!!!! Don't be afraid of them. If you haven't had any trouble out of them until now, I wouldn't worry. If your dogs haven't attacked your own cat, then the cat they did attack did something to your dogs to make them attack. Sounds like your dogs are not aggressive and do not show this behavior on a normal basis. If I were you, I would assume that your dogs felt as though that cat was danger and they needed to protect you and themselves. Who knows, that cat could've smacked them or something, which made them mad. I personally wouldn't worry. Big dogs are 99% of the time always gentlier with children than they are with other animals b/c they feel the need to protect their families. I think your hubby yelling at them was probably enough to calm them down and make them realize they did something bad.
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