Cautionary Tale: So you think you want a Dutch Shepherd

[centrop67]

Last night over on the DSF Facebook page an angry gentlemen posted a rant about the Dutch Shepherd Breed and the dumbass people who are not professionals who would have them as pets. He subsequently removed his own post about 20 minutes later.

Apparently while walking his Maltese in his quiet neighborhood, he was attacked out of nowhere by a Dutch Shepherd and a Lab. His dog suffered severe life threatening injuries including a mutilated face and a ripped open stomach. He stated that the owner of the DS and Lab had accidentally let the dogs loose.

I was actually on Facebook when it was posted, and I immediately was angry and defensive. I knew I had to digest everything he said before responding (or determining if I would respond or delete his post).

I also remembered this news item from April regarding another attack by a Dutch Shepherd.

Thought 1
I am only seeing one side of the story.

Thought 2
Did he go on any Labrador Retriever pages to rant about the stupid Lab owners?

Thought 3
What can of worms am I opening up by allowing this post to remain?

Thought 4
What was he doing that he didn't notice two large dogs coming towards him?

Thought 5
I started empathizing with his suffering dog.

Thought 6
Why was the DS/Lab owner so irresponsible?

Thought 7
Is it possible that this guy did something to provoke the situation?

...

On-and-on, back and forth, I kept wondering how to handle the post. By the time I sat down on my PC to respond, the post was removed. Let me be clear that I did not remove his post.

My biggest problem with the whole situation was singling out the Dutch Shepherd breed. Heck, a woman was mauled to death by Dachshunds last month.

The bottom line is how important it is to be vigilant and responsible owners, discourage back yard and unscrupulous breeders, support DS rescue organizations, and educate people who think they want to own one.

That is all.

[borellar15]

Yea idk how I feel about that. Just reading your post I feel like that could have happened to anyone. Maybe they forgot to close the fence or it didn’t close all the way and they may have rushed out of the door who knows. It’s unfortunate. As for the DS and lab attacking the other dog... ahhh. They may have just been excited and when they got to the dog it may have responded defensively which triggered them to respond with aggression.

As for his comment about people not owning those type of dogs I mean that can definitely be true. I’ve seen plenty of people who bought a working line of dog and had them trained for personal protection and then rarely saw them come to club for the weekly PSA night. Some people just don’t understand the amount of work it is and that they need to keep up with it and take it seriously. They just want a protection dog for whatever reason and then once they’ve went through purchasing the dog and sending it to training they feel like they’re done and they have one and don’t have to keep working with them. When you build that kind of prey drive in a dog and then let it sit idle for a while what do you think is going to happen in an incident like that. But they just don’t understand it. Only people who know about that kinda thing do.

Unfortunate event truly. Idk without more information it’s hard to speculate what the cause was or why it happened. But another reminder why dogs off leash is just a bad idea.

[TimL_168]

So... In line with the defensive part, how was the breed of the dog identified?

[Dutchringgirl]

well, I may have sided with the guy, there are a lot of people who have Ds's and do not know how to handle them or train them and they are a VERY protective breed. I do not like FB anyway because no matter what you say you will get jumped on, but they guy has every right to be angry. ranting on FB is never a good idea but he has a right to be mad

[oddbird]

well, I may have sided with the guy, there are a lot of people who have Ds's and do not know how to handle them or train them and they are a VERY protective breed. I do not like FB anyway because no matter what you say you will get jumped on, but they guy has every right to be angry. ranting on FB is never a good idea but he has a right to be mad

I agree that he has a right to be mad, but I also feel a bit defensive. He has no ground to stand on to lash out at others who did not own the two dogs in question and have never even met him. He is a bit out of line (and I am sure he recognized that his FB rant was a moment of emotionally charged immaturity hence the deletion), but I can empathize with the pain he must feel at his pup being so injured.

[Dutchringgirl]

that is the problem with social media. its a place to just go and lash out at whomever. I am not defensive about that though, he does have that right, just as people have a right to lash back at him.