We feel that it is
our responsibility to tell our story for the sole purpose of educating
and possibly helping others avoid the nightmare that we have, and still
continue, to go through.
We purchased our baby
boy, Rudy, approx. 3 years ago at
the age of 10 weeks old. He was pick of the litter, and was purchased from a well known
breeder, which made us feel confident that we were getting a sound dog
in every way. We noticed instantly that he had a nervous
personality, which we thought odd since Staffords are not known for that
trait. He was scared of inanimate objects such as boxes, bags,
etc.., as well as noises. We called the breeder and
explained the nervous, timid personality that our puppy had, and we were
told that it was just his personality, and to try to get him used to
different things and environments. We immediately enrolled him in
obedience classes, where he did okay, but still continued to be timid.
We tried to build his confidence, but nothing we seemed to do really
helped. Rudy was shown nothing but love from the minute we met
him. We don't believe in hitting dogs or anything of the sort, and
our pets live in our home with us, sleep in our bed, and basically just
share our everyday lives with us. Since no one was telling us that
we had a potential problem on our hands, we decided that he was just a
shy dog, and we would continue to love him and do what we could to help
him overcome his fears.
When Rudy was approx.
9 mos. old, he started a fight with our 1-1/2 yr. old spayed female
Stafford (from a different breeder). We were shocked, and
immediately called the breeder again for advice. We were told that
he was "coming of age", and would outgrow this. We
decided to believe that this was a stage he was going through, and tried
to be more careful with toys, food, etc. The two dogs were always
separated when we were not home as well. From that point on, Rudy
would start fights with the female, for no apparent reason, every couple
of months or so. In between the fights, the dogs got along fine,
played together, etc.. Once at a puppy match, Rudy
growled and tried to go after a four month old female Stafford
puppy. When that happened, we again called the breeder, and
were told that we needed to always be very firm with him; basically let
him know we were the boss. Again, we took the advice, and told
ourselves that everything would be okay (the breeders didn't seem to
think otherwise, and we assumed that they knew what they were talking
about since we were basically novices). We were very frustrated,
but loved Rudy very much, as he was a cute and loveable little guy
"most of the time".
Approximately a year
ago, Rudy growled at a friend of ours, who knew Rudy from the time he
was a puppy. Later that same day, he growled at me (Brice) when I
leaned down to pet him. As you can imagine, we were extremely
upset. AGAIN, we called the breeder, and they suggested
that we take him to our vet and have his thyroid checked. All of
the blood tests came back fine. We were referred, by
our vet, to a reputable behaviorist. We also made an
appt. to have him neutered. We were willing to try whatever we
could in order to "make him better". He was
neutered and we took him to the behaviorist, who told us that our little
guy was basically like a paranoid schizophrenic. He suggested, as
a last resort, we put Rudy on a medication called Clomicalm.
We went back to the vet, where they had to check his liver prior to
placing him on the medication. His liver tests came
back fine, so we put him on the Clomicalm, during which time, he
growled at both of us on different occasions. The medicine was not
helping. After he would growl at us, or fight with our female, he
would act confused as if he didn't know what just happened. He
never actually tried to bite anyone, so we thought that we could control
it with lots of love, strict obedience, and different things that the
behaviorist told us to do. Basically, we loved him so much that we
were blind to what was actually happening, and thought we could handle
it, or that he would "grow out of it", as we were told
in the past by people we trusted.
On Dec. 15th, 2002,
Rudy tried to bite our 8 year old cousin, for no reason. Our
cousin was practicing basic obedience with Rudy (sit, stay) and giving
him treats. The entire thing was being supervised. Rudy's
tail was wagging and he was acting happy, etc... He put his paws
up on our cousin's chest and kissed him in the face, but as soon as his
feet landed back on the ground, his hackles raised all the way down his
back, and he started barking and growling and lunged at the 8 year old
trying to bite him. Luckily, Brice was able to grab Rudy before he
could bite. We were devastated and immediately called the
breeder. We knew what we had to do, but we wanted to see if there
was anything they could do so that we didn't have to put him down.
They said that if we brought him back to them, that they would take him
to be put down or go with us to do it, because they felt it was the only
option at this point. Instead of driving 7 hours, from our home in
Ohio, to the breeder, we took our Rudy that evening and had him put down
at the local animal hospital.
Rudy showed signs of
not having a correct Stafford temperament from the time we brought him
home, but we wanted to believe what we were told, that he would outgrow
certain problems as we continued to love, support, and train him.
That was not the case, as he was obviously born with a mental problem.
As you know, a Stafford should NEVER show aggression towards
humans, especially children, and especially for no reason.
We know that we did nothing to cause his problems. He was given
love, socialization, and training from the day we got him until the day
we lost him. During the entire time we had Rudy, almost 3 years,
we were never once contacted by the breeder to ask how things were going
after our numerous complaints.
Since losing Rudy, we've
talked to an individual who had two Staffords from similar bloodlines
that have both had to be put down because of human aggression. Both of those
Staffords actually bit people. If people continue to breed dogs that have
produced offspring with incorrect temperaments, the entire breed will
suffer, and people
are going to get hurt. Even if 99% of the offspring are fine, that
other 1% can cause serious harm. Rudy was NEVER bred. There may be
other similar cases, in which owners and breeders are keeping it
quiet. It is everyone's responsibility to report these types of
behaviors to the Stafford community, so that it can be determined whether
there is a pattern of dogs with this problem. Otherwise, we will
see it spread throughout the breed, and our beloved pets will live up to
the media stereotypes.
Rudy's mother and
father do not live with the breeder. We were told by the breeder
that they would contact both owners and inform them of this
situation. Almost a month after putting Rudy down, we got in
contact with the owner of Rudy's father, and
were told that he "had no idea" that we ever had
problems with Rudy. To date, we have been unsuccessful in finding Rudy's
mother's owner, and are assuming that she, too, has not been informed by
the breeder.
If you have a
similar problem, don't let it go too far just because the dog is a joy
to be around "most of the time". Putting Rudy to sleep was the
hardest thing we've ever had to do, but we know that it was the right
thing to do. We know that there are biased individuals who claim
that we did something wrong, or that we aren't telling the whole
story. We have only one thing to say to those people; may you
never be in our situation.
Thank you for
reading our story.
Click
here to see Rudy's Pedigree
