Quote:
Originally Posted by tater
My son is VERY gentle. He tried to pet her because he loves doggies. Not grab, just a pet. Bam. She's growled before at both kids, immediately knew it was wrong, then skulked outside.
Snapping, however, is an escalation. All it takes is a kid (kids run through the house, after all) falling on her, or god forbid they try to be nice to her. That was pretty much a 50/50 chance of dog rolling over to be nice, or a growl. and yes, she'd had full work ups at the vet to determine if anything was wrong (bloods drawn, the works).
Fobbing her off on the pound I obviously thought about briefly, but I'd feel responsible, and she has growled at both my wife and I many times (she'd growl most times from her crate if we got up in the night, and a really serious, ugly growl (though shar pei sound that way often regardless cause they have fat faces)).
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You might well find if they did an autospy that she had cancer or some form of internal problem for that kind of personality degeneration. My mother worked in animal welfare for...well...most of her life, and she came across a dog I do believe it was who was as sweet as a pie, good with kids and everything until one day it turned around and darn near took someones face off. After it was put down, they did an autopsy and found it was riddled with cancer and there was a swelling on the brain, so it could be a similar occurance.
EDIT: Read the goddamn post Oberon. Still, even with bloods and things like that, some vets can still miss cancer. Our last dog was an example of that... But, at least whatever troubles she had, she is out of them now, and she had nine years of not being in a shelter. I don't know what the average lifespan of a Shar-pei is, but nine years old in any dog is a reasonable age.