Can animals be born "bad"?

needing-help

While I was out with my dogs today I met a lady with a jack russell puppy. We got talking (who can resist a puppy ) and she was saying that she had recently had one put to sleep because he was aggressive, he was 18 months old.

She said she had kept the breed for 30 years and had never had a problem until that one. He had always been growly and snappy but in the last few weeks he had bitten her properly a few times and the final straw was he had gone for next doors child for no reason at all, luckily he was on a lead so he didn't get her.
The lady had been ot the vet with him and there was no medical reason. She is convinced he was just born bad and nothing would change him.

Wondered what everyone thinks.

meritaten

I do think that sometimes, very, very rarely you will get the occasional psychopathic dog. (or cat for that matter). this may be down to a bad gene pool or a defect during foetal development. sometimes this can be overcome with training and good environment. but, as this lady found out - it manifests early and cant always be eradicated.
and well done her for having the courage to have the dog PTS.

krlyr

I think you can breed bad temperament into dogs. Each breed has different traits - for example, the Labrador is often a faithful retriever (but ruled by its stomach!), the GSD a loyal guard, the JRT a fiesty Terrier.

Traits are what made them more suited for the job they were bred for, but sometimes these traits can cause undesirable behaviour. For example, the guarding GSD which then becomes wary of all strangers runs the risk of biting someone out on a walk. The fiesty JRT may bite off more than it can chew with its attitude towards other dogs. The greedy Lab could develop resource guarding with food, or start snatching food out of strangers hands.

These traits may be managable and treatable in the average dog, but with generations of bad breeding, they could become exagerated, and possibly worsened by a combination of bad traits or potential health issues through the indiscriminate breeding.

However, there are other possibilities. How thorough was the health checked out? Many vets may look over a dog and deem it healthy. But without doing blood tests (including comprehensive thyroid panel - the thyroid can cause lots of behavioural issues when it goes wrong), x-rays, even brain scans, you can't rule out a health issue.

Also, how has the owner dealt with the dog's behaviour? A minor issue could easily spiral out of control with the wrong treatment. What starts as a dog giving warning signals, like a growl, for feeling uncomfortable could escalate to snaps and then bite sif the dog was punished or otherwise made to feel it couldn't give these warnings. A dog with resource guarding could be pushed to bite if pushed - just look at the Cesar Milan video of him doing just that to a Labrador!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ihXq_WwiWM

I don't know this lady to know if she used the right methods or not, but I have seen and heard of the wrong methods going badly wrong.

MrsAtobe

I'm with Meri on this one, very, very rare but it does happen. It must have been an incredibly hard decision to make for this lady, but with her experience, she knew that there was something not right, and at least went to the vets to find out if there was a medical reason for it. I hope she has found joy with her new puppy.

needing-help

She is a lovely lady and I know the dog had blood tests etc but not sure if she had scans. She tried her best but once he went for a child she said he was too much of a risk.

I could tell how hard it was for her when we were talking and we both ended up in tears (I lost my young dog in the summer to a brain tumour which turned him aggressive)

I'm guessing she knew how to train and handle the breed given that she had owned them for that long.

I'm not really into small dogs but this pup was adorable

krlyr

Intersting short article on the subject
http://www.clickertraining.com/node/1690

Person_one

krlyr wrote: »

A dog with resource guarding could be pushed to bite if pushed - just look at the Cesar Milan video of him doing just that to a Labrador!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ihXq_WwiWM

That video winds me right up. Until I saw that I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was well meaning but misguided, not any more.

krlyr

Yup..and even despite all the pushing and pushing, he actually suffered pretty minimal damage to his hand - she had all the opportunity to crush his hands to bits (the way mine crunch up chicken carcasses gives you a good idea of the power in those jaws!) or to bite him again if that was her intention, she was pretty restrained even when pushed completely over her threshold.

lollipopsarah

Gik I don't understand your postings, I adore animals but agree with Meritaten who has the guts to say what a lot of people think.
Sorry if you don't like it but it's kinder to put the dog to sleep than wait and then have another tragedy (too many children recently).
I once had an evil cat who I loved to bits who could see of a salesman in
30 seconds.
xx

DaveTheMus

Animals don't have a moral compass.......There is no good or bad in the jungle.

Person_one

lollipopsarah wrote: »

Gik I don't understand your postings, I adore animals but agree with Meritaten who has the guts to say what a lot of people think.
Sorry if you don't like it but it's kinder to put the dog to sleep than wait and then have another tragedy (too many children recently).
I once had an evil cat who I loved to bits who could see of a salesman in
30 seconds.
xx

Gik is clearly a returning poster who is aware of something that meritaten posted about some time ago.

His/her posts will disappear soon, as will this one!