[lengel]

I seem to have a sign on my forehead that says "Attack and injure, maim or kill my pets." It's written in permanent invisible ink on my forehead and I can't get anyone to help me get it off.

A few weeks ago, Fran was attacked twice at an agility seminar. The instructor did nothing.

Saturday, a lab mix attacked and killed all but two of our chickens. This is the second attack. The owner did nothing to contain the dog more effectively and another of my chickens died of stress yesterday.

Tonight, I took Zooey (four and a half month old puppy, mind you) to obedience. There were maybe 25 dogs in the class tonight. I saw an open spot on the far end of the room and headed there. We had to pass within five feet of another dog to get there no matter what route we took so I chose to pass a dog that we've trained next to before. It's a seventy lb or so mixed breed. The dog broke away from his owner and attacked Zooey. She flipped over and started shrieking which seemed to excite the dog even more. The other dog had Zo by the neck and clamped down harder pushing her on her back across the floor.

The other dog's owner froze. So I broke my cardinal rule of not touching another dog without the owner's permission, reached down, grabbed the dog by the collar and hauled it off Zo, handed it back to its owner and took Zo off to the side. Who says that working with rescued dogs doesn't teach you mad skills? Zo wasn't bleeding but she lost tufts of furr in the attack. When she calmed down, I took her across the room. The instructor then came in, said she hadn't seen what happened but explained that it could very well have been Zooey's fault. People just looked stunned. The woman next to me could not stop talking to me, going from what a nice puppy Zooey is to how I should have responded differently (like you're thinking when your puppy's under attack). To be fair the woman next to me was more traumatized than I was though.

Ten minutes later, the other owner is in tears and outside. Does the instructor say that she should go home for the night and they'll talk later about alternative training? Oh no. The other owner's dog is encouraged to participate in the crate training activities. Needless to say, no one with a dog smaller than hers cared to approach so the entire exercise was a bust. Guess the rest of us are supposed to do this at home. In short, no favors done to anyone in the class, including the other owner.

I'm telling you, I get the part where other people have animal aggressive dogs but I don't get the "Oh, that's just the way it is - it's just too bad that he/she targeted your animal" or the instructor's "I didn't see what happened, let's just proceed." What a bunch of crap. Know your animal, meet it's needs and make sure it's not a danger to others. Good grief. How basic is that?