Re: I\'m might to have to shoot my pal (dog) 
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I am on vacation, and my sister and neighbors are watching the place. A barn cat and a sheep were attacked and killed. All signs point to the culprit being my own shar-pei/lab mix dog that has been a good friend and guard dog for many years.
He has been known to catch and kill things, so the fact that a barn cat is dead doesn't suprise me that much. He can run like the wind blows and the cat is mauled but generally un-molested.
What we can't determine for sure is the sheep that also died in the same time frame. The difference is that one of the sheep's legs has been stripped to the bone. There is only circumstancial evidence, but there is enough of it for me to think he is indeed the culprit. Although there has been a lot more coyote activity around, the following doesn't add up:
<ul type="square">[*]Only one leg was eaten of the sheep
[*]The cat wasn't eaten at all - typical for my dog who would kill gophers, but never consume any of them
[*]the room the dogs slept in last night is covered in diarrhea and vomit, but it isn't clear which dog is sick. It could be coincidence because I have a cocker spaniel that eats something non-edible and gets violently ill almost once a month
[*]It would have been very difficult, but not impossible for my dog to get in there and then get back out. There is a place he can easily jump in, but getting out would have been much harder. He is a very smart dog though
[*]Even if the coyote was interrupted, it would have come back as soon as it thought it could scarf some sheep down, although the sheep is past due to be shorn and that might have presented a problem. It doen't explain why only one leg though.
[*]My dog didn't eat much this morning, but at the same time was probably over-fed the day before according to my sister
[/list]
I think I am pretty near convicting him, but I am not sure how I should go about ending his life. I cannot conceive anyone taking him in - he
will not tolerate other adult dogs and I don't think anyone would want to take in a dog that has killed livestock.
We got him years before we had a child and although he is very tolerant, we do often wonder how he would behave if an older toddler really pushed him.
I could take him to the vet, but he is such a good friend and I know he hates going to the vet with a passion. He may have killed that sheep, but for many years I slept better at night knowing no stranger would mess with a menacing 50# dark chocolae dog with ripling muscles and eyes that hide the whites. He would defend us to the death, but his violent tendencies make it very hard.
He is a rescue, and we made a legal promise not to take him to a pound, but that was many years ago, and many hundred miles away. He was a handful for the rescuers and his shar-pei instinct to not tolerate dogs "not in his care or pack" was a real problem.
The sheep he killed has been a real PITA lately, but it also happened to be the ONE sheep my wife picked out and wanted. My wife gets pretty emotionally attached to her animals and this is not remotely easy for her.
Anyway, since I am still on vacation I look forward to any thoughts or opinions on this because I am pretty conflicted.
)</font>
Hmmmmm, tough position, hard questions, harder answers for sure.
For the sake of the discussion let's assume the dog is guilty. He killed the cat. He killed the sheep.
The first thing we have to accept is he's a canine. Canines kill, it's their nature, it's their role in life. So his killing isn't aberrant behavior. It's a natural behavior. Not killing while the preferred behavior by you is the kind of aberrant behavior that would insure his demise in the wild.
The reason he hasn't killed before is evidently your presence and his acceptance of your rules. If this is considered then we can share the blame, well, you get a share of the blame. Dog doesn't know me from Adam. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
I would suggest a better answer than capital punishment might be probation and a commitment from you to better supervise his behavior.
Your supervision and his inate desire to please you and your family was enough to prevent bad behavior in the past. The bad behavior happened when you removed those parameters from the equasion.
BTW I believe the killings were not coyote. In my experience the reason coyotes kill cats is because they're prey, not enemies or competitors.
Coyotes have a habit of going for the soft tissue after killing. Think about it. A coyote large enough to kill a sheep understands that the soft tissue is the easiest and has the most nutrition. They know there will be immediate competition for the meal if it isn't there already.
A dog on the other hand has not had to kill for food. But they have had chew bones. The knawing on the leg sounds more like a dog's learned behavior than a coyote's.
I see your decision as one of accepting your own responsibilities in this incident. If the dog is important enough to you on a personal level to perform the capital punishment in as humane a manner as you can. I believe you need to consider the option of accepting him as a member of the family that comes with a disfunctional side. Not unlike accepting a friend who can't be trusted with drugs or alcohol. But the same friend is someone that offers so much that the inconvenience of keeping alcohol and drugs at a distance is a minor inconvenience.
