HARD THINGS

 I told you a few months back that we were having some issues with our dog.

Unfortunately, things escalated and we made the very difficult decision to return him to the breeder.

In hindsight, I wonder that we kept him so long.

He was all fine and dandy until one day he wasn't.

It started with food agressions and escalated over a period of time.

He bit 9/11 of us..some more than once and everytime unprovoked.

I get that we have a lot of people in the house and not a ton of space, but each time it was out of the blue..

It got to the point where the little ones were all afraid and we were all on eggshells waiting for the next time he would "snap."  It was very stressful. 

We did bring him to obedience training.  We brought him to the vet to see if there was something physically wrong. We had him professionally groomed to see if there was something matted and hurting him. We also reached out to 4 or 5 different trainers, especially those with "problem" experience and there was only one who was even willing to work with him. One of the kids did some research and he really fit all the criteria for schizophrenia.  The breeder was willing to work with us and do whatever we needed to do, she was amazing that way.

We pretty much did everything we could within our means to keep him, but just couldn't continue the way we were going with no change.  There were tears, lots of tears and lots of sadness, but also relief, knowing it was the right decision.

We did not want to give up on him, but kids come first. 100% 

So we surrendered him back to the breeder who found him a home with a child-less couple.

Even though he is a dog, we still pray that it would have worked out for the best.  That his issues would be worked out  and he would have a happy,loving family and life.

We will get another dog in the future, but for now we need to heal from this.