Stupid Owners With Ill-fitting Dogs

[HeavyPaws]

Friend of the family bought an American Staffordshire Terrier from a puppy mill almost a year ago. Stupid reason, their kid was terrified of dogs so they bought one to get him over it. It didn't help, obviously.

They didn't research the breed at all, they got one because one of their friends has one and they liked the way it looked. It was walked everyday for about two weeks, then retired to the backyard because it was too bouncy, and promptly abandoned in terms of involvement.

It went to training for 6 weeks, one of those $2 a session jobs run by a bored housewife, learning only 'sit' 'stay' and 'heel'.

Unneutered.

No socialisation with other dogs or people, no extra effort with training {they put it's inability to learn anything down to 'all staffies are dumb', rather than 'we were too dumb to realise that bull breeds need focused training'}, no effort to exercise it beyond twice a week walks to the end of the street.

Now they've got someone staying with them who also bought an AST, a young female whose only exposure to other dogs is the aged maltese owned by their grandfather, and they are both honestly surprised that the two dogs are now not only fighting violently both with each other and any other dog they meet, but also *somehow* getting more and more "frusterated" and "bouncing on and biting people".

Note that neither of these dogs were taught bite inhibition either.

I told them they should research the breed now {better late than never}, buy a training book for bull breeds {the Pigs one}, take them both to proper training classes and also keep up training every day, walk for at least an hour a day, increase socialisation with the help of a behaviourist, and be more involved with them.

Was I listened to? Ohhhh noooo, because I'm apparently "not even a vet or nothin', besides you gots a big dawg so ya wouldn't know about no small dawg like a staffy"

Then they went back to discussing how they're going to "train" them by walking them past each other on leads, and if they try to fight, they'll "yank them with a choker", on the advice of their electrician buddy who thought keeping a GSD puppy in his caravan for the first 6 months of it's life was the best way to ensure loyalty.

Apparently he's a dog expert, and I'm just making up the term "bull breed" because they can't think of any other dog that looks like a staffy and has 'bull' in it's name.

Truly?

If that fails, they said they don't know what they're going to do, because it's getting "really annoying". Ummm, here's an idea....take my advice?!

They even went so far to say to me "Yeah, what dog would you recommend then, Miss know it all?" and I said "None, you're all so stupid that you'd mess up Lassie", which started a discussion about "those Lassie dogs are good with kids", with thoughtful looks at each other, and someone else piping up with "What you gotta do is, buy a Labradoodle, Labradors are perfect with kids and Poodles don't shed or need training so you get the best of the best".

When I arked up about that, they said they saw it on Better Homes and Gardens so they'd know what they were talking about.

I swear to Dog, I'm in the mood for killing people today.

Anyone want to join me?

Edited June 10, 2010 by HeavyPaws

[Nekhbet]

joy. Give them my contact details I manage to put everyone back in their box

[Magstar]

I got frustrated just reading that so I can't imagine how frustrated you must be feeling!

Some people will never learn....and its most probably because they don't WANT to learn.

[Nekhbet]

yeah I still get the old 'But Dr Harry said' from my relatives. Oh and the best one I'm not a good dog trainer because I dont drop everything and train my dipshit primadonna cousins dog for free multiple times. Did it once, now you pay bimbo. Dog ended up given away and now pumps out the puppies

There seems to be no crossing over of the fact my dogs are well behaved, relatives ooh adn ahh over them then dont want to take advice from me I have given up and just refuse to answer any more questions.

[KnucklesDutchnUs]

Hi

The ignorance of some owners is increddible !

Good on you for trying to get through to them though.

Any chance of changing the title of this thread to "Stupid owner rant". It's probably more appropriate to the content and lord knows the last thing we need is another thread that ends up being closed at 18 pages of people trading insults on the pro's and con's of bully breed's.

Cheers

Bob

[lovemesideways]

People. Suck. GRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....

[W Sibs]

Ohhh... >_<

some people just have no idea!!

[aussielover]

The poor dog

[HeavyPaws]

Hi

The ignorance of some owners is increddible !

Good on you for trying to get through to them though.

Any chance of changing the title of this thread to "Stupid owner rant". It's probably more appropriate to the content and lord knows the last thing we need is another thread that ends up being closed at 18 pages of people trading insults on the pro's and con's of bully breed's.

Cheers

Bob

Did so. I'm sick of reading bully threads myself.

Lord knows I've tried to get through to them, printing pages off the internet, even highlighting relevant parts, but they dismiss it as "you can't trust everything you read on the internet" although you can trust everything you see on Better Homes and Gardens.

I'm sorry you seem to have idiot relatives too, Nekhbet

[KnucklesDutchnUs]

Thanks mate

cheers

Bob

[ravenau1]

Poor dog

I guess some really never have a chance to be good canine citizens! I amazes me that people just expect a puppy to automatically grow up into a wonderfully well behaved dog with no help from the owner, just like magic!