Dear editor,
Re: 'Gentle giants' at centre of dog attack disagreement.
This article certainly left more questions than answers. Sadly, no one really knows what happened, as it appears it wasn't witnessed.
I do have to point out though, this is yet another example of why dog owners need to be diligent. Here we have a dog injured and two others who may be euthanized and it was all very preventable. As a groomer, trainer, Canine Good Neighbour evaluator, and a longtime advocate for responsible dog ownership, I have to point out that it is very obvious even in the sparse details of the article that there was a history of what is called fence fighting between these dogs, hence the need to install double fencing.
If the two owners had addressed the situation with a trainer, or better yet never left their dogs out unattended as well as addressing this with a trainer, this whole mess could have been avoided.
I would tend to hold both owners equally responsible. The part of this article that says it is logically impossible that the smaller terrier could have crawled through the fence was made by someone who may not understand dogs, drive, or fence fighting. It is actually entirely possible.
Clearly the little terrier was not avoiding the other dogs if it was close enough to be dragged through, or if it crawled through. I strongly suspect it was engaging in aggressive fence running behaviour and that so were the two larger dogs.
Just because it was the smaller dog does not mean that it was the victim of bullying in the altercation, it may very well have been an equal participant and simply lost the fight. It is highly likely that all three dogs were acting aggressively.
It's quite unfortunate that the humans involved didn't work together to address the issue or at least simply not leave their dogs out without careful supervision. I'm not trying to make these owners feel bad 鈥� clearly both are already upset, but I do hope others will learn from this.
Please, pet owners, be diligent about supervision, and about seeing potential problems and being proactive about preventing them.
Angela Gilbert,
Courtenay
