The Sacramento area is a beautiful area to fly, especially after a weather system moves through and does a great job of clearing the air. Given his involvement with the CDCR drone team, Eric welcomes any opportunity he can get to fly our DJI Spark.
Safe Travels all!
Eric & Carol Anderson
Monday, February 4, 2019
Sunday, February 3, 2019
A bitter sweet start to 2019
The year of 2019 starts out like any year, where you hope for one that is happier and contains less drama than the year prior. For us, 2019 started out with lots of family gatherings starting with a couple trips up to Amador County to meet with Carol’s family members and enjoy a couple of games of Bowling at Amador Lanes with fun conversations with the Waite family and just basically enjoying each other’s company.
Unfortunately, prior to even completing the month of January of 2019, we had to make one of the most difficult decisions in our lives. On one evening in October of 2018, as Eric was reaching down to kiss Rex good night, Rex reached up to Eric and bit him in the face. Though Eric was not seriously injured, one of the lacerations appeared that it might require stitches and so we went off to the hospital to have Eric’s injuries checked by a doctor. Thankfully, none of the injuries were serious and after the wounds were cleaned and some anti-biotics applied we were sent on their way home.
Unfortunately because of the visit to the ER for a dog bite, the incident had to be reported by the hospital to the Sacramento County Animal control. This meant that now Rex had what amounted to a ‘Scarlet’ letter on his record. We then reached out to our veterinarian as well as a well-respected Dog Behaviorist organization in the Sacramento area seeking guidance on what was our best course of action moving forward. With our vet deferring to an evaluation by the behaviorists called Tug dogs, we met with them for an evaluation of Rex. Their conclusion was that Rex did not show signs of aggression that could be regularly triggered. Their concern that this incident would not be a ‘One-off’ incident and that when we least expected it, a similar incident would occur.
Over the next few months we both worked with Rex by increasing his training and exercise to help re-enforce our roles as Pack leader as well as trying to ensure that a “Tired dog is a good dog”. We also worked to make sure that Rex felt included as part of our family and did not feel like we were trying to distance ourselves from him.
During the holidays, things seemed to be going fairly well until one night in early January when a fight almost broke out between Rosie and Rex with Eric in between them. As the situation developed, Eric scruffed Rex and this resulted in Rex attempting to redirect to Eric in order to get free. Fortunately in this incident, no one was injured but we were both deeply concerned. Subsequent evenings, both of us had separate evenings where Rex growled at some point during the evening.
Given this series of events as well as the fact that Rex still tended to escalate play to a point where the other dog Rex was interacting with would get injured; we were deeply concerned that no one was safe. We also acknowledged that everyone was living on pins and needles. When Rex got too assertive with Charlie, Charlie would not correct Rex or fight back and just let himself be injured. Rosie would attempt to correct Rex, but these incidents would just continue to escalate to a point where in most cases, both dogs were injured.
We researched this behavior, keeping in mind Rex’s history. We have had him since he was a 9 week old Puppy. We recalled that because Rex, his siblings and mother were running lose, his initial rescuers were able to capture Rex and his siblings, but their mother got away. This resulted in none of the puppies getting proper socialization by their mother prior to being weaned off from her. Studies have shown that puppies raised in this situation, frequently end up showing unexpected aggression as they grow to be adults.
With all of this, we knew that humane euthanasia was our only responsible course of action. So, at 3:00 PM on Monday the 28th of January, Rex was put to sleep. We are both deeply impacted by this development. Both of us love Rex and valued him as a member of our family. We just wish there was some way we could have explained to him how important it was for him to change his behavior to save his own life.
We love you Rex, we always have and we always will. Run free our baby boy… we love you and miss you!
To all the followers of our blog, please give your furry friends an extra hug this day.
Safe travels all!
Eric and Carol Anderson
Unfortunately, prior to even completing the month of January of 2019, we had to make one of the most difficult decisions in our lives. On one evening in October of 2018, as Eric was reaching down to kiss Rex good night, Rex reached up to Eric and bit him in the face. Though Eric was not seriously injured, one of the lacerations appeared that it might require stitches and so we went off to the hospital to have Eric’s injuries checked by a doctor. Thankfully, none of the injuries were serious and after the wounds were cleaned and some anti-biotics applied we were sent on their way home.
Unfortunately because of the visit to the ER for a dog bite, the incident had to be reported by the hospital to the Sacramento County Animal control. This meant that now Rex had what amounted to a ‘Scarlet’ letter on his record. We then reached out to our veterinarian as well as a well-respected Dog Behaviorist organization in the Sacramento area seeking guidance on what was our best course of action moving forward. With our vet deferring to an evaluation by the behaviorists called Tug dogs, we met with them for an evaluation of Rex. Their conclusion was that Rex did not show signs of aggression that could be regularly triggered. Their concern that this incident would not be a ‘One-off’ incident and that when we least expected it, a similar incident would occur.
Over the next few months we both worked with Rex by increasing his training and exercise to help re-enforce our roles as Pack leader as well as trying to ensure that a “Tired dog is a good dog”. We also worked to make sure that Rex felt included as part of our family and did not feel like we were trying to distance ourselves from him.
Given this series of events as well as the fact that Rex still tended to escalate play to a point where the other dog Rex was interacting with would get injured; we were deeply concerned that no one was safe. We also acknowledged that everyone was living on pins and needles. When Rex got too assertive with Charlie, Charlie would not correct Rex or fight back and just let himself be injured. Rosie would attempt to correct Rex, but these incidents would just continue to escalate to a point where in most cases, both dogs were injured.
We researched this behavior, keeping in mind Rex’s history. We have had him since he was a 9 week old Puppy. We recalled that because Rex, his siblings and mother were running lose, his initial rescuers were able to capture Rex and his siblings, but their mother got away. This resulted in none of the puppies getting proper socialization by their mother prior to being weaned off from her. Studies have shown that puppies raised in this situation, frequently end up showing unexpected aggression as they grow to be adults.
With all of this, we knew that humane euthanasia was our only responsible course of action. So, at 3:00 PM on Monday the 28th of January, Rex was put to sleep. We are both deeply impacted by this development. Both of us love Rex and valued him as a member of our family. We just wish there was some way we could have explained to him how important it was for him to change his behavior to save his own life.
We love you Rex, we always have and we always will. Run free our baby boy… we love you and miss you!
To all the followers of our blog, please give your furry friends an extra hug this day.
Safe travels all!
Eric and Carol Anderson
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