You must have a small garden which makes this easy........without a powerful searchlight there is no way that we could watch our dog from the back door

This will always be a subject that is purely down to personal choice. If I had to give an answer, if Tilly was to kill another within my household would I have her PTS? No way on earth!! But if you were to ask me if it really did happen then I may feel differently. None of us really know what we would do. We only have an idea of what our decision would be. I still think I wouldnt destroy but happily I've never had to make that choice! Who are we to say what someone else should or shouldnt do. Its called free will. We may not agree with anothers choices in life but they are theres to make, not ours. Hindsight is a marvelous thing. We can say what should and shouldnt have been done. But it has happened and whats important is how we deal with it. To lose a dog in such tragic circumstances must have been truly horrifc. I couldnt even put myself in that situation. But it cant be changed now. There have been cases of dogs attacking their owners who are fitting. I dont believe this is down to pack dominance. Im no vet, but I would imagine the sight of this must trigger something in the dog. Wether its protection, aggression, etc I dont know. But as humans, we can never truly know what goes on in canine minds. Personaly I think it would be tragic to lose two dogs over this. If plans can be put in place to avoid problems, surely thats better than a second dog losing its life. Its so hard though. I just hope its never a choice I have to make.

I can honestly say that if one of mine killed another I wouldn’t have the dog held responsible pts certainly not before trying other things first if it was a choice I made it would be made after I had done everything else I could possibly do, training wise, taking caution when around other animals ect. My dogs - my responsibility for life - Thats a promise I make to myself and them when agreeing to take a dog on...I guess for some the one injection to have the responsible animal pts takes that responsibility away so 'quickly', it’s the easy way out isn’t it, meaning one less worry for the owners - the right thing or not - who cares, it’s the easiest If one of my dogs is found dead/hurt because of another then it’s MY fault, I left them in the situation - and although I would have to live with that its only me I could blame, I couldn’t blame the dog responsible even less so if I did not witness the incidence!!

I have not read all the thread, so don’t know what’s really going on, on here – but that’s my opinion anyways!!

Its not huge, I cannot see the gate, nor the left side fence from the back door, the light kicks in half way down, there is one as they go out of the door too. I also have cameras.

Hmm im not quite sure what you are getting at if anything

Put it this way. Our two dogs never had cats living with them until June 2010 & at that stage they were age 5 & 3 years. Yet they accepted a kitten, When we got a 2nd kitten at the end of the summer both dogs were enchanted with her. Dogs can be trained to accept other animals into their lives.

Max has killed small wild animals, a number of mice and a young fox cub in my dad's garden. I hate to think of any animals being killed and it really did sadden me what had happened. In the case of the fox cub, it was hiding in the undergrowth, Max smelt it and grabbed it before I realised what was happening. The second I saw what he had I shouted 'drop it' and he did, but he had grabbed it by the head and that was that....

My dad lives quite rurally and they are having a lot of construction going on in the land over the road, which I think is why the cub took shelter in the garden. Since then I have seen a number of muncjack deer in his garden so I always take Max out on his lead there now and have a good look around before letting him off.

We have a number of cats locally and if Max killed a cat that came into our garden I would be devastated. Would I consider him a dangerous animal and have him put down - no I wouldn't.

It is easy to speculate that we would do this or that if our dog killed another family dog, unless we have been in the situation ourselves we cannot say with any certainty what we would do. I for one hope that it is a situation that I never find myself in because I cannot imagine for one minute the heartache that it must cause.

Not necessarily just the sight. I howl just before I go into a grand mal seizure. That could trigger an attack. I've also kicked or punched Rupert while having a seizure as he insists on curling up next to me despite me flailing around. Could also be slight changes they can smell or something and we can't, Rupe's really off with me just before a seizure.

I have to say it does worry me a bit, hopefully my next dog is as non aggreessive about my seizures as Rupe is

Splitting hairs.....

It's good to see the old stereotypes about ALL cat owners coming out here - come on show your true colours guys.

Let's lay my credentials on the line. My cat is an amputee - likely because of a dog (possibly a fox but I think a dog was given as the more likely culprit). She was a semi-feral farm cat spotted limping one day, trapped, treated and rehomed via Cats' Protection - by the time I rehomed her she was the tripod. She does NOT go in other people's gardens - because of the nature of her amputation being that she's missing a back leg and so lacks jumping ability (she's firing on one "spring" so to speak) - she was rehomed with the express condition that she went to an indoor only home. I was looking at the time for an indoor only cat because the house I lived on was on a main road - and because, being brutally honest, I can't be bothered with the incessant moaning about cats in gardens and having an indoor cat cuts that off stone dead.

My other two cats still live with my mother on an isolated woodland area - they roam the local area - but since the nearest neighbour is half a mile away... they don't go in gardens either because there are none to go in.

Surprisingly considering what's happened to her - mine doesn't fear dogs at all - she resents the furry intruder into "HER" house (she generously lets us pay the mortgage and catfood bill to live here), and she can sulk for England - but fear... nah - she's been known to strut up and down in front of the dog when he's focused on me as if she's trying to train him.

I've had her for pushing 7 years, she's been my friend, my companion and at the time I was having a breakdown - she's the reason I didn't end it all. I would go to jail for how I would react toward the owner of any dog that hurt her - and I'd do it willingly. She's no less of a member of the family than any dog is - and dogs have all manner of other instincts and drives people will happily work to moderate - but there's a large section who'll happily stand there and drool innanely that "he's got a high prey drive" and regard other people's pets as acceptable collateral damage. I do everything within my power to ensure my cat is safe - but if she did get out and a dog went for her... I'd go for the dog to protect her, and then I'd go for the owner.

I will not leave the dog in the same room as the cat if I'm not there - I could not live with myself if either of them were harmed (although I'd suspect the dog's nose would be more in danger than anything else). I do everything I can to make sure that there is never ever a situation whereby either of them are at risk - and I went for the most cat-unreactive can't be bothered they hiss and have claws and stuff that for a game of cricket dog I could possibly get to further minimize it.

You get endless threads about how you're working out X dog's reactivity toward dogs, about how you're trying to work to ensure that your dog doesn't go ballistic when confronted with little old ladies carrying polka dot newspapers... yet it's deemed perfectly acceptable for you to have a dog that will rip another person's beloved pet limb from limb. Just because they're not dogs they don't matter... I've got naff all time for cat people who want dogs obliterated as an inconvenience, likewise - I've got naff all time for dog owners who regard other people's animals as just potential fluffy chew toys. You might not like them, their brains are definitely wired very very differently - but both sides are beautiful, intelligent, often graceful (I'll disregard my dog here since he's the most gangly badly coordinated lump of fur you'd ever see and it's just a fluke coincidence if all the bits move int he right direction properly) animals... I could watch a cat clean themselves for hours - it's so meticulous, so careful and utterly fascinating... likewise - I could watch my dog wander around a field for hours fascinated by everything that is the most utterly utterly amazing thing he'd ever seen before (even if he left the field less than an hour ago).

Speaking of humans - Dawn - i'll answer for you!

"Of all the creatures, man is the most detestable. *Of the entire brood, he is the one who possesses malice.
He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong, proves his moral inferiority to any creature that can not."
Mark Twain