Many decades ago my four year old daughter was invited to play at a neighbor's house with another little girl while visiting her grandparents in an upper middle class neighborhood. While there, she was attacked and knocked down by the neighbor's Doberman that went for her throat while she was on the ground. Thankfully the bite occurred under her arm pit as she instinctively raised her arm to protect herself. The dog clamped down and shook her like a rag doll. Fortunately the owner's teenage son was there and got the dog off my daughter. She was rushed to the local ER where they contacted the county animal control due to the severity of the attack.

Graphic: Military Working Dogs Continue Proud History. Wikimedia Commons.org. Public Domain.

It was discovered the dog previously bit another child in the neighborhood although not as badly. 

The investigator, a sheriff’s deputy, leaned over and whispered: "There are no free bites in California."  She was angry the dog had bitten another child, and the owner, knowing the dog to be vicious, constructed a remote feeder in his backyard. He invited my daughter into that yard with the dog and tried to hide the dog with a relative. His insurance company settled in a hurry in excess of $50,000 and paid for all medical expenses including counseling. My daughter had nightmares for years.

Maybelline was a female pit lab mix my wife rescued from our local shelter based on a photo of her in the paper. In those days, the local shelter euthanized dogs and cats and Maybelline’s time was running out. We already had a lab and both were around a year old. They became best friends for four years, shared beds, and we took them on numerous camping trips where they shared the camper shell and the tent with us. 

One day at an unofficial camping area in the High Sierra, Maybelline, out of the blue and out of character, took off after a small dog walking with a little girl.  Terrified, we grabbed Maybelline before things happened and kept her on a leash after that.

Over time, Maybelline started trying to be the Alpha dog. When my wife would leave for several days to deal with her aging parents, Maybelline would growl at me and not let the lab near the water bowl.

One day the dogs came across a bird wing and quite a squabble between them occurred. I got them apart somehow but Maybelline continued to behave very aggressively. My wife got them to calm down for the evening and all was well, or so we thought.

The next day all hell broke loose. They fought and tumbled and bit and rolled down a hill.  I got them apart using an axe handle as a persuader.  Maybelline was a mess and off to the vet she went with my wife. The Lab acted as if nothing had happened. The vet bill was around $700 and this from a good old boy country vet.

After that we kept them separated thinking maybe the lab was the aggressor and kept her on a leash away from Maybelline. We noticed over the next few days Maybelline would stalk the lab, giving her the stinkeye.

A few days later my wife tried to take the dogs for a walk and put the lab on a leash, thinking she could pull the lab off if she went for Maybelline. Maybelline attacked the lab, grabbing her leg. My wife got them apart with a shovel, and the lab crawled off under a bush while my wife called the vet. The lab couldn't walk, so my wife got a bed sheet, dragged her to the truck and drove 45 minutes to the vet. Another $800 vet bill. The vet looked at my wife and said slowly: "You need to deal with this".

So Maybelline was the problem after all. I was determined not to rehome Maybelline after my young daughter's traumatic mauling years earlier. The next morning I dug a grave, put Maybelline on a leash, grabbed a revolver, and walked her down to the doggie graveyard. She never knew what hit her as she sniffed at the freshly turned earth.

I'm not happy the way all this turned out. I've had dogs all my life. The lab lived to be almost 16. We have a spoiled rotten rescue Aussie mix to this day.

My wife was a dog evaluator for the local Humane Society and evaluated hundreds of dogs for rehoming. What she learned is when dogs become aggressive there is no bringing them back to acceptable and trusted behavior around people, livestock and other pets. It is dangerous to rehome them, and they need to be put down as was the Doberman, Maybelline, and Kristi Noem's dog Cricket. Kristi did the right thing.