We agree about something then

I deliberately kept out of the other thread because frankly i found it too upsetting. Its only 7 months from i lost a much loved old & very frail companion dog & i still get emotional when i *see her photos

To me, at times the "victim" in the other *thread seemed to get pushed to one side with the emphasis being on the future of the aggressor

To me it is totally abhorent that this gentle old lady was killed in such a way by another canine member of the family

I would find it very hard to view the aggressor as anything but.*

You bring puppies into your home, nuture them, love, cherish, train, exercise & watch them grow to adults. Time passes & they age. There is something wonderful about the older dog, you & they are so much in tune. They know you so well. You know there will come a time when you have to let them go & break your heart yet most of us do it time & time again.*

I personally think to come home to what must have been like a massacre scene must be the most shocking thing ever to witness. These people are still in shock & not thinking straight

Household pets in packs conform to our standards & rules, owners are the alpha & please no one *shoot me down for the use of a word. I mean it merely that our dogs respect us & live to please & be the companions we want them to be.

To my way of thinking, Dogs who attack & kill an old & frail companion consider themselves very much dominant pack leaders.*

Defence?
Food?
Fun?
Lessons?
Accident?

Cats will keep mice half alive to teach their kittens a life lesson as do other animals.
Some animals kill for fun, some to defend themselves and then the obvious one - food.

So IMO it's not just blood lust.

But in the case mentioned in the original post - it may be something neurological or health issues that cause the killing - not blood lust.

My dog killed a pigeon in her first year - she hasn't gone on to kill anything else - despite several hamsters been placed on her back and bunnies running around and other birds she has come into contact with - no blood lust there.

Many people have said that they have seen similar incidents within their groups of dogs. Do you think all these dogs have been considering themserlves the pack leaders?

rune

Just remembered Mollie killed a rabbit when she was about a year old she found it and brought it to us so gently rabbit died of fright with not a mark on it, no blood lust there but dead animal just the same.

True thinking about it when we had a problem it was from the bottom of the pack (if that is how you see the family set up) and the dog in danger was another low pack dog the top dog kept well out of it.

My tuppence worth, if any of mine ever killed another pet in the manner we're discussing I would no longer trust this animal at all, it would be pts.
My terriers have always dispatched vermin happily, but because I allow them too and if I called them off they wouldn't just go ahead and do so, I couldn't imagine not having control of such high prey drives and potentiality destructive dogs. As a side note I had working terriers, my JRT in particular was a bloodthirsty little so and so at times, and kept cats, and heaps of rabbits, guinea-pigs, and ducks and the dogs never harmed them, not once, never even went too. I know of working lurchers kept alongside cats and small furries happily, the point i'm making is you really can't compare the concept of dogs being worked on vermin to that of a dog killing another, as it's not the same as is done under the owners control-or should be anyway, I wouldn't have an animal just go off killing things whilst in my care if I didn't want it too.
I really fail to see how you can justify keeping a dog who has killed another, yet again I find the dispensible attitude of cats being killed by dogs sickening too, there you go maybe I and others do not fit with this "new regime" of dogsey which has come about I'm perfectly aware dogs are animals, but they can't be compared to the actions of livestock and such, as they are animals we choose to trust in our homes.

A bit off topic but still on the "blood lust" theme ~ I was told aboout a lady that rehomed a rescue dog (a small lurcher I think). This naughty little dog stole some meat that the owner had left out to defrost.

The next day the lady brought the dog back to the rescue centre saying she couldn't possibly keep the dog now. The staff explained (very nicely) that dogs are opportunists, that the meat was left out within easy reach of the dog, so what did she expect? And there's a simple way to resolve this & stop it happening again ~ don't leave food within reach of the dog!

The lady wasn't concerned about the fact that the dog stole the meat ~ her concern was that because the dog had now tasted raw meat, it would have aroused its "blood lust" & she wouldn't ever be able to trust it again. She said the dog could now attack anything warm-blooded, another dog, or a cat, or may even bite a human.

Sadly she deadly serious & insisted on returning the dog. Luckily she wasn't allowed to rehome another!

You make no allowances for illness and/ or injury?

Whilst I don't necessarily agree with you, I respect that you are entitled to your opinion & how you'd feel in such a situation.

But I think there's a lot of difference between killing as a result of predatory behaviour & fighting that may lead to serious injury or death, for reasons other than predatory behaviour.

The drive, emotion, reasons & physiology of predatory aggression are very different from other reasons, emotions & physiology of other types of aggression & I don't think that, in the scenarios discussed on this thread, predatory behaviour is very comparable to fighting/injury/death caused by fear or resource-guarding.