Mods, I don't know what board to post this on so please feel free to move it if necessary. A friend of mine sent me the text below. Basically, he's helping a couple look for a new home for a 9 year old chow. He'll be put down on Tuesday if they are unable to find him a good home. Read below and IM me if you are interested.
"A friend has asked me to send this out with the hopes of leveraging the power of email/word-of-mouth to help out with a situation with which we've been confronted past few weeks. Some very close friends of ours have a 9 year old chow/mix named Billy that they rescued about 8 years ago. Billy's been a great member of this family, however, given some abuse he evidentally faced in his first year he is often wary of grown men. Also, given his chow breed, he has had some previous aggressiveness issues (again, strictly targeted at grown men).
As a side note I should mention that he and I have never had any problems...I've been around him many times, we get along beautifully and in my opinion he's a great dog. However, I realize any sign of aggressiveness - previous or existing - eliminates about 95% of the potential market, but if you're still with me, then great.
Billy lived the majority of his life as "part of the family" - sleeping in the master bedroom, hanging around indoors, etc. However his owners had their 1st daughter last year and, given some concerns about his demeanor, they took some initial measures to keep him completely separated. Although he had never had any issues with children, precaution understandibly dictates this sort of thing.
Around December it was decided that the family would move Billy out to a farm around Brenham, where the setup would be a little bit better - more space, etc. The situation at the house had become too confining for all, and although there hadn't been any problems with him in years, the family felt it was not worth the risk keeping him around the house.
Long story short, the farm arrangement did not work out for reasons beyond this email, so the past few months Billy's been placed in a kennel until a solution presented itself. Unfortunately it never has and it was decided that Billy will have to be put down this coming Tuesday.
The plan is to bring him home from the kennel today, let his owners give him as much love as possible, and allow him to live comfortably for his last 6 days.
Now, it would be irresponsible on my part to recommend making a home for Billy for anyone with small children (or cats maybe). I cannot guarantee that he is completely "over" his aggressiveness issues. However, I can say that there have not been any episodes for several years, and he is 9 years old and "mellowed" in his old age. Those of you that know me know that I wouldn't put the time and effort into an email like this unless I truly felt that this was a good dog that could give a lot of love to his new owners.
If you have anybody in mind that might be a good fit - possibly a single female without kids who loves dogs - then please pass this along.
This is obviously a bad situation for all involved and one that at this point doesn't seem to have an easy solution. I'm sending this out as a last-ditch attempt to see if any of you might have something, or somebody in mind that could help in the way of either adopting Billy for his last few years or passing this email on to somebody that you think might be interested.
Thanks for reading this. Any ideas/thoughts, please let me know. If you want pic's, let me know and I'll have Ashley send them to you."
"A friend has asked me to send this out with the hopes of leveraging the power of email/word-of-mouth to help out with a situation with which we've been confronted past few weeks. Some very close friends of ours have a 9 year old chow/mix named Billy that they rescued about 8 years ago. Billy's been a great member of this family, however, given some abuse he evidentally faced in his first year he is often wary of grown men. Also, given his chow breed, he has had some previous aggressiveness issues (again, strictly targeted at grown men).
As a side note I should mention that he and I have never had any problems...I've been around him many times, we get along beautifully and in my opinion he's a great dog. However, I realize any sign of aggressiveness - previous or existing - eliminates about 95% of the potential market, but if you're still with me, then great.
Billy lived the majority of his life as "part of the family" - sleeping in the master bedroom, hanging around indoors, etc. However his owners had their 1st daughter last year and, given some concerns about his demeanor, they took some initial measures to keep him completely separated. Although he had never had any issues with children, precaution understandibly dictates this sort of thing.
Around December it was decided that the family would move Billy out to a farm around Brenham, where the setup would be a little bit better - more space, etc. The situation at the house had become too confining for all, and although there hadn't been any problems with him in years, the family felt it was not worth the risk keeping him around the house.
Long story short, the farm arrangement did not work out for reasons beyond this email, so the past few months Billy's been placed in a kennel until a solution presented itself. Unfortunately it never has and it was decided that Billy will have to be put down this coming Tuesday.
The plan is to bring him home from the kennel today, let his owners give him as much love as possible, and allow him to live comfortably for his last 6 days.
Now, it would be irresponsible on my part to recommend making a home for Billy for anyone with small children (or cats maybe). I cannot guarantee that he is completely "over" his aggressiveness issues. However, I can say that there have not been any episodes for several years, and he is 9 years old and "mellowed" in his old age. Those of you that know me know that I wouldn't put the time and effort into an email like this unless I truly felt that this was a good dog that could give a lot of love to his new owners.
If you have anybody in mind that might be a good fit - possibly a single female without kids who loves dogs - then please pass this along.
This is obviously a bad situation for all involved and one that at this point doesn't seem to have an easy solution. I'm sending this out as a last-ditch attempt to see if any of you might have something, or somebody in mind that could help in the way of either adopting Billy for his last few years or passing this email on to somebody that you think might be interested.
Thanks for reading this. Any ideas/thoughts, please let me know. If you want pic's, let me know and I'll have Ashley send them to you."
