Untimely death of a much loved puppy.

This is a horrific story and I am looking for advice not just for the closure and understanding of what went wrong but also to see what I can do to make sure this never happens again.

I have a 4 year old German Shepherd bitch. She lives with my partner, 7 year old son and I. She is the most loving loyal and well behaved shepherd I could have wished for, never damages anything, only plays with what is hers and is great with people including kids to the point I have never needed to use a lead in the park for the last 3 years.
She can be defensive with other dogs but never ever approaches them, only if a dog comes to her will she argue and even then it’s more boisterous play with a little dominance thrown in. One word from me and she walks away no matter what is happening.

I recently got a new addition to the family, an 8 week old male puppy shepherd. Things I thought would be tense at first as they found there places so feeding was done together, bed times were together and having some understanding of the pack mentality the bitch was allowed the odd growl towards the pup telling him to back off if unwanted attention was given. In short I tried to accommodate the quick and necessary pack distribution process so it was painless and safe.

I drew the line when I disciplined him for chewing or weeing in the house the bitch would stick her nose in, she would paw at the puppy quite hard putting quite a lot of weight on him, making strange grunting noises and try to pull him under her body. Her tail would always stand very high and straight in this act. I don’t believe this was an attempt to take him away from me but as if she was chastising him also. On a couple of occasions she took a nip at him but caused no injury. She would be told to go away or they would be segregated for a short time until the issue passed. This always seemed to work and the days became quickly very pleasant and relaxed
My discipline is a quiet but firm NO with a replacement chew toy given if it’s a chewing issue or taken outside to his run if it was a weeing accident.
When left alone they were fine, no sign of any disturbance and never any noise of fights, the puppy was not being touched when we were not around, it seems it was only when we disciplined the puppy.

One night recently my partner sat stroking the puppy that then proceeded to wee on the spot rather than go outside. As normal although he was now very close to fully house trained he was sent outside to the run to tell him where he should go to wee. The bitch followed and next came the most horrific scream from the puppy. I ran around but it was too late, the puppy was limp, the bitch was stood over him, pawing and still making the same strange grunting noise. A dash to the vets was fruitless and he died in our arms. He was not even 10 weeks old.

The vet believes that the bitch bit the puppys neck and one of her teeth pierced skin and cut into his throat. This injury we believe killed the puppy.

Whilst I deal with the grief of loosing such a beautiful puppy, who in such a short time brought such pleasure to our family I question the what ifs and what would have been I am also now in a horrible place where I resent my bitch who until that day was always my “little girl”. A strong bond has been broken and I have effectively lost two pets that night.
My questions are:
Is this a common thing with dogs?
Is she a puppy killer who took an opportunity?
Was it deliberate or an accident?
Could I ever get another puppy in the future with my current bitch in the house?
and what would I need to do to make sure that this never happened again?

Steve,

Firstly, I am deeply sorry that you and your family had this terrible experience. And I know it will be extremely difficult to deal with your bitch and live with her but please do try to learn from this situation and forgive her.

I will attempt to provide some insight, but must say, without knowing the dog, seeing the dog and pup interact, or seeing the incident my response is speculative and not conclusive.

A dog killing a puppy is not common, but not entirely unnatural either. In other words your bitch is not a monster, or a bad dog. It’s not that black or white. She is a large, powerful dog and it sounds like she was over-stimulated, and perhaps overly controlling with the pup. Possibly predatory drift played a role.

We can never completely know why other beings do what they do, what they are thinking – heck we can’t even know with a person, let alone another species – and dogs can’t tell us.

And since nobody witnessed the incident we are missing clues that would give us a better indication. So we can’t say whether it was deliberate or accidental, or what her motivation was for sure.

However, it is generally believed that dogs don’t have the ability to premeditate and I doubt she thought “I am going to kill the puppy”. Most likely she is a dog without the proper canine social skills to be gentle even when being firm and it could be a case of a normal bitch-on-puppy correction that went awry/overboard because she lacks bite inhibition and socially appropriate skills to communicate clearly without doing damage.

Your vet should be able to tell you conclusively whether the bite wound was fatal. I would be surprised if it was, generally the cause of death in these situations is is a broken neck from a shake or a corrective muzzle-punch that kills the young and fragile pup, kitten, or cat.

What we do know is that she is not safe around small animals and lacks the amount of social restraint necessary to live with small fragile creatures. And it is common knowledge to never leave dogs and young children unsupervised.

Take this new information very seriously. I would not recommend that you get another pup while you have your bitch, and I would be much more careful with her when you are out and about. In light of this new information, she should not be off-lead at the park either in case you encounter young pups or small adult dogs. This may sound like overkill, but you now know what kind of damage she is capable of and better safe than sorry.

Things happen with dogs, they are powerful animals with different social rules and communication techniques than humans. This is why Dr. Dunbar and I so strongly believe proper early socialization and teaching bite inhibition is so important in young pups. A behavioral vaccination against hard bites and overly rough behavior if you will.

To hedge our bets against violently aggressive scenarios when living with dogs we recommend lots of dog/dog interaction when young with littermates, adult dogs, and continuing with other pups in puppy class, and progressive soft-bite/mouthing exercises with people over simply not allowing biting and mouthing at all (too early), lots of control exercises such as tug-of-war with rules, and leave, take it, gently.

Accidents do happen and sometimes the true doggieness in dogs comes out. Bites happen. Our goal is to put a very strong foundation of gentle mouthing and appropriate socials skills into a young pup so that when they get older and stronger any bite that occurs it likely to be less damaging.

To begin the healing process, please try to see your bitch as what she really is, a dog, just a dog, with good traits and bad traits just like everyone else. Mostly well behaved, but with poor bite inhibition and canine social skills.

For some perspective on how to live as a human primate with a canine companion without expecting too much of them, but instead loving dogs for what they are I highly recommend you read both Patricia McConnell’s “The Other End of the Leash” and Suzanne Clothier’s “Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships with Dogs.

My deepest sympathy for your loss. I wish you and your family the best through this difficult time.

Steve, I am so sorry for what happened to your puppy. And I can well understand how the event has changed your attitude toward the adult female.

As other posters have pointed out, since neither you nor any of us saw the “attack” we will never know why it happened. It could have been an accident, a maternal bite gone overboard. It could have been some sound the puppy made that triggered a predatory action. And it could have been quite deliberate…wolves have been observed to kill offspring that are either sickly or disruptive to the pack’s survival. In that case, though, I doubt though that she would have continued to paw the puppy and make noises. She would have just killed the puppy and moved on to other matters.

Even if it were an intentional act, it doesn’t mean your bitch is a bad dog. Dogs live by quite different rules than we do and there are no moral values attached. Knowing what happened, though, I would not recommend bringing another puppy or small dog into your household, nor allowing her to be loose around other puppies or small dogs. If you feel you want to get her a companion, choose a medium to large adult dog. That doesn’t mean everything will be peachy keen, but at least the other dog can stand up for itself. Or you may just feel you can’t ever love and trust her again and have to rehome her. If you choose this route, be sure the new owner is aware that she has “issues.”

As other posters have pointed out, sometimes we dog owners forget that we are living with a large and very efficient predator. Some people freak out if their dog kills a bunny. I used to be one of those people. However, my current dog is extremely predatory, and I’ve gotten used to seeing dead rabbits dangling from her mouth. I’m thankful that she seems to recognize that a dog is a dog regardless of size but I still wouldn’t leave her unattended with a chihuahua. And a cat would be out of the question. So, yes, I keep a close eye on my dog so I can remove her from the situation as soon as she exhibits any predatory behavior toward anyone’s pet. And the predatory “lock” is so obvious before she even makes a move.

Again, Steve, whether to trust your bitch again or not is going to be your call. Please accept my most sincere sympathy for this tragic event.

Died at 10 wks old how long did you have the puppy before you choose to leave it alone unsupervised with an adult dog? How can your feeling change for the adult dog this is on you!! the animal with the highest IQ you wouldn’t leave a 4 month old baby with a 9 yr old would you? I have very little sympathy for ignorance i would be upset with myself not the adult dog you couldn’t of had the puppy more than 2 wks before you let them alone together!

Hi Steve, like others, my sympathies are with you. I’d also advise you to ignore the rather ignorant comments of jayne who has displayed a form of ignorance on her part.

Someone did mention a key issue above, it can’t be ignored that dogs are primarily a predatory species. Whilst that doesn’t explain much in your situation, it should shed some sort of light.

I think the key issue that many have left out, is that your bitch tried to get involved only when you disciplined the puppy. I believe the process of you disciplining the puppy gave your bitch the task of also disciplining the puppy. Unfortunately, never having the proper understanding of doing so, she didn’t really understand how to do so.

Kelly is right to say that this was not premeditated and I don’t believe that your dog intentially wanted to fatally wound your puppy. It sounds as if she didn’t quite know how to exert her discipline on the pup in her own way.

In that respect, in order to stop it happening again, I would take on board some of the suggestions offered, such as a vet check up and also have a look at hiring a behavioural expert to see if she can be taught to go easy on smaller animals.

I’d also recommend not to get any more puppies in her lifetime, I know it’s a rather sad thing to say, but you really need to consider the other animal that you are bringing in.

It’ll take time to mend your relationship with her and it will take time to get over the loss. Just don’t let her suffer because of it, she still needs you as an owner and she still needs somebody to love her.

It’ll take time.