Sorry if the headline of this discussion is to triggering for animal lovers – I can change it if it is.

My mom adopted a one-year-old dog from the pound about 5 years ago. My little brother picked the name "Oliver" for him, after Oliver Twist, because he'd had such a hard luck life up to that point.  He was extremely intelligent, obedient, trainable, and sweet.  Initially my mom commented that none of her children (me and my 2 younger brothers) wouldn't have anything to do with Oliver.  The reason for this was that due to my mom giving away previous family dogs which left us kids devastated, we were hesitant to get attached to another dog, which is what I told my mom.

My mom proceeded to try to get us to interact with him more, and Oliver soon won us over with his charming personality. The trouble came when one time when a visitor came to the house, Oliver got upset and nipped at the visitor when the visitor tried to pet him.  He did not bite very hard, the bite did not break the skin, and my mom talked to a dog trainer who said that the fact that he did not bite hard was evidence of self-control, and that he was just giving a warning nip, and that he could be trained to not do this.  

Oliver was also a tiny dog – only about 10 or 15 pounds.  My parents way of handling the nipping was to tell Oliver to "go out" whenever guests came over, which he would always do immediately – he was always extremely obedient.

My husband and I visited my parents about a month ago, and as usual enjoyed seeing Oliver.  My husband was quite fond of him.  We returned to visit my parents again last weekend. I didn't see or hear Oliver in the house, so I looked out back to find him. When I didn't find him in the backyard, I asked my parents where he was.  They told me, "Oliver's gone."

I asked them, "Where did he go?"

My dad: "To the happy hunting ground."

Me: "The happy hunting ground? What happened to him?"

My parents told me that he had nipped at another visitor, and so they had had him put down. My mom said "I just didn't feel that I could give him away.  It was a bad day."  It had been the same type of nip – he did not bite hard, and did not break the skin. It was a warning bite, and my mom said that he thought he was protecting her.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It made no sense.  There were so many other possibilities and solutions that they could have tried before putting a good, obedient, intelligent dog that the family loved down without telling any of us kids first.  I'm in my 20s, by the way, so it's not like I'm a child who needed to be protected from the truth.

My parents did not try any other methods of making sure that Oliver never nipped at someone – such as not letting him be around visitors or people he doesn't know, training him to not bite, or using a muzzle or anything like that to keep him from biting anyone.

My husband and I have really been wanting to get a dog ourselves, and my mom and I have talked about this several times over the past few months. We would have loved to have taken Oliver ourselves if we had known about the situation. It is well within my abilities to train a dog to not bite, and even if it proved to be impossible to teach him to not bite (although I doubt this would be the case due to his high intelligence and obedience), I could have made sure that he never bit anyone. There are so many options available for accomplishing this.  We would have been delighted to take Oliver into our home.

And, even if my parents had decided that putting the dog down was the best decision, I don't think it was right of them to not inform me or my siblings of this decision beforehand.  We didn't get a chance to try and talk them out of it, and we didn't get a chance to say goodbye.  It was such a shock to be looking for him and looking forward to seeing him and then be told that he had been put down.  

I am so angry at my parents for doing this, and for doing it without telling us beforehand.  I'm also sad for my mom, because she spends a lot of time alone, and Oliver used to keep her company – it's hard to watch my parents make such poor decisions that bring themselves and their children so much pain and sorrow.

I'm sure my parents haven't told my younger brother, just like they didn't tell me, so I need to tell him. But, I haven't got up the nerve to yet.

By the way, many people think that if a dog bites he should be put down, but this is a misconception – many times the dog thinks that this is his job to do, and he only needs to be trained to know that this is not the case. I have an experience in Dog training and this would've been easy to accomplish with Oliver, as he was sweet, non-aggressive, intelligent and obedient.  There's a lot of information available on this online: http://www.rileysplace.org/dogblog/understanding-dog-bite-behavior-...