01/06/2026
🚨Behavioral euthanasia🚨
The humane ending of a pet's life due to severe, unmanageable behavioral issues, typically aggression or intense anxiety, that significantly impacts their quality of life or pose significant risks to the pet, its family, or the public. It is considered a last resort after other interventions fail. It's not convenience euthanasia but an extremely difficult decision for the animal's well-being. Problems often stemming from genetics, trauma, or underlying pain, making the pet unsafe or dangerous. This is to ensure safety for all others involved.
We have already posted on our private pages but I did want to be completely transparent through our rescue community as well. I will not be naming the dog but if you know, then you know. This is a topic that is not discussed much and not many understand. There is no need for judgement, as we are already very much heartbroken from this situation. We did not come to this decision lightly, it was truly a last resort.
We picked him up when he was 30 minutes away from being euthanized due to FAS (fear, anxiety, stress.) We have never shied away from a dog that was shut-down and this time was no exception. He had to be carried to our vehicle. We worked with him so he would recover and he ending up doing wonderful with dogs and people, but did not like our cats. Which I understand, not everybody are cat people so that wasn’t much of a concern at the time. We would take him to adoption events with no issues. Then, the last event he wanted to protect his foster family. His fear got the better of him and it had turned into a safety risk for other dogs, cats and other humans. It was decided that we would continue fostering him, but when meeting a potential new family, another volunteer from CAS would have to take him.
With his many “quirks,” we loved him and knew it would take a special kind of person. It had to be someone who understood him the way we do and unfortunately that was truly impossible when there are so many other adoptable dogs in this world. It came to a point where we knew that we would be his forever family. We adopted him and were elated that we could give him a safe place.
We took him to his first vet appointment and he couldn’t handle being away from his new mom to even get a weight. He has separation anxiety which caused fear and resulted him in shutting back down. Unfortunately his behavior took a turn for the worse.
The resource guarding that started as warning the other animals to stay away from “his” human eventually turned into one of our OG dogs getting frustrated and protecting himself. Our OG has never showed any sign of a mean bone in his body. OG is the biggest wussy and would never truly mean to hurt anything. OG acting this way showed us that he was trying to tell us that something isn’t right.
We figured out his triggers and started taking them away but this lasted longer than it should have. Even with how much animal experience we have, this is something that we have never truly experienced before. We eventually had come to a decision to BE. We did back out the first time, because even though we had given him many chances, in our hearts, we still weren’t sure.
Unfortunately, the attacks still continued even with a dog who was his best friend, who he loved unconditionally. At one point, we were all living in fear, just waiting for the next situation. We knew we couldn’t live this way. We knew that he wouldn’t be able to be adopted to anybody else because we would have to find a single person, no pets, no kids, no going in public and someone who knows dogs behaviors. We had consulted trainers and actually had scheduled a basic training to start but came to the conclusion that even if we went, he has “wires crossed.” We can’t risk him killing an animal or person.
The heart breaking truth is that he was a good dog, because all dogs are good dogs, and he had an army of people that loved him deeply. Dogs, like people, can be behaviorally complex, and that does not mean that they are “bad”. Along with that, many of these dogs are also suffering from high amounts of fear or anxiety. In some cases they are housebound or go into full panic when left alone due to separation anxiety or other fears (of strangers, noises, cars, etc.)
Even with all of this, we can say that we gave him 6 months from his original death date. 6 months of being loved. 6 months of feeling safe. 6 months of being the full grown puppy that we adored. You are a huge part of our story and have taught us so much. We truly loved you so much.💜
Thank you, Roonies. You can go chase all the squirrels now. RIP💔🥹
P.S.
If you read this far, thank you. This was such a hard post to make. You guys know we are truly here to rehabilitate and love them as our own. We will still be supporting CAS and will eventually bring home another foster when we are ready. We just need some time to grieve. Picture of our cat, Calypso💜
