Puppysitting part II

Cathy's foster puppies were not orphaned by accident. The sad fact is that these puppies came to the county pound with a living, healthy mother who did not make it out alive. There were two mother dogs with puppies at the shelter that week, and both were deemed too aggressive to release for rescue. This caused a terrible outcry from some rescuers and onlookers. They argued that it's natural for a mother dog to be protective of her puppies, especially in such a frightening environment. They believed that these mother dogs deserved a chance, that with time and patience and a quiet, safe environment they were likely to come around and their aggression would abate. I decided to go down to the shelter and see these poor doomed dogs for myself. One of them was obviously very frightened. She huddled at the far corner of the kennel with her pups, head down, and refused to look at anyone who approached. When I spoke softly to her and made to open her kennel door, she growled. The other dog was frankly terrifying. When I approached her kennel, she charged the door, locking eyes with me in a hard stare, barking and snarling.

There is no way I would ever rescue either of these dogs, and I don't think there's anyone in my rescue group who would disagree with me about it. It's very possible that one or both of them MIGHT come around in a quieter, safer environment, when they didn't feel so threatened and their puppies weren't so vulnerable, but the risk was just too high. The shelter staff had tried to get each mama dog out of their kennels and away from their puppies to see if they were less aggressive in a quiet room with no puppies to defend, but neither dog could be safely caught and removed from their kennel without the use of a catch pole and a big fight. The risk of injury to both the staff member and the dog herself was too high. Who would be willing to transport such dogs to their homes for fostering? What if they remained just as aggressive in their new surroundings? I would never dream of putting the fosters who volunteer for us at such terrible risk. There are plenty of non-aggressive mother dogs who need to be rescued and won't compromise the public safety.

In fact, I recommended that we only rescue the puppies of the first mama dog, the one who merely growled from a distance. In the past, we have rescued puppies from aggressive mothers, and sometimes we have discovered the aggression had its roots in genetics. Just like in humans, behavioral traits and temperaments are both inherited and learned. A combination of genetics and environment shape who we are, both dogs and people. It is impossible to know why these two dogs were so aggressive. Were they feral or just poorly socialized, and simply unused to humans at all? Or was there a genetic, hereditary component to their aggression? We've rescued truly terrified, poorly socialized mother dogs that never even growled when humans handled their tiny puppies, and of course, sweet girls like Maxine from my Jan. 9th entry who wag their tails and lick the hands of total strangers, even in the overwhelming environment of the shelter kennels. And at least once, we've rescued the tiny nursing puppies of mother dogs so aggressive they've had to be euthanized, and watch those puppies grow into an inherited predisposition for aggressive behavior as well, despite a loving and gentle upbringing. I thought the risk of this happening with the puppies of the mother dog who charged the kennel door at me was too high.

I was overruled by two other volunteers on the "dog team" for my rescue group. Cathy was willing to take the really young puppies, eyes still closed and not even 2 weeks old yet, and these were the puppies of the mama dog who rushed the kennel door. These are the adorable fluff-balls who begged to climb up into my lap after they had tired themselves out playing so they could fall asleep on my chest. I tried not to think that about the fact that I had been willing to consign these precious beings to death along with their mother, after a cold evaluation of risk factors. And out of fear. The idea of fearing those roly-poly babies seems absurd now. Please say a prayer that it will always seem absurd, for their whole lives.