I do not think I will ever forget the labor day of 2007. The day was promising to turn out great! I had a hair cut, took my kids to a butterfly show and was on my way to meet my husband and spend the rest of the day in Annapolis.
The day turned around when on the way back from the butterfly show my car broke down, the engine over heated and I was stuck on the gas station on the hot day with two kids waiting for my husband to come and rescue us. By the time we made home, we could forget about our planned trip. I was super stressed out due to the car trouble, trying to guess how badly the engine was damaged and how much it will cost us to fix it. As I was sitting on the front steps of my house, with the dog by my side, trying to compose myself, my 7 year old daughter was nagging on me to let her to hold the dog. I said "no" over and over but I finally broke down and let her. Stupid uh? yeah. Maybe those who have 7 year old would understand why I did what I did. But, the rule was broken, "no" turned into "yes" and the punishment followed shortly.
Please understand that after my meeting with George, I really felt that there is no danger in doing what I was about to do. George told me not to let my dog near other dogs, but the street was deserted and I was on my front yard and there was no dog in sight.
A minute after I passed the leash into my daughter's hands and turned away for a second my neighbor came out with their toy poodle. This wasn't a dog that we never met before. In an instant my dog lunched an attack on that poodle, needles to say that my daughter couldn't stop her from going where she wanted to go.
So here comes another vet bill, plus I had to pay 3 days worth of the owners salary as she twisted her ankle when she got tangled by the leash and couldn't go to work for 3 days. On top of that two days later the animal control officer was knocking on our door.
Just because my dog is full of love towards the people, nobody who meets her think that this dog has an aggression issue. The animal control officer wasn't an exception to it. He was very nice and explained to us that our neighbor is planning on submitting an affidavit and if they do that we will be facing an additional $1000 fine on top of what we had already paid about $1700. So he suggested that we should go talk to them and make it go away. However he still gave us a warning and labeled Brandy a potentially dangerous dog.
For those of you who wonders about the amount of fine here is a break down:
$500 for the unwanted contact. Yes, if you think that it's very cute when your dog comes to people on the street without their invitation, if the person is scared of animals he can report you to the animal control and you will be charged with unwanted contact.
$250 for the trespassing - because my dog had to get on their yard to get to them.
$250 for the off leash animal.
I called George the next day in panic. To my surprise the response was something alone those lines: "well, what did you expect, the dog is not trained well". What happened to the "great job" and "your dog is not aggressive"?! I asked if he thought that if I spay her it would resolve the aggression issue. Thank God he said that it's not guaranteed. So I have decided that I better to spend my money on training, but with someone else.
I went back to the aggression board describing the incident, but I was told that George is a very good trainer, and that even best trainers cannot with 100% certainty know whether the dog will bite or not. That might be true, but what bothers me the most and what I cannot comprehend to this day, and even more now, knowing what I know about the state laws regarding the dangerous dogs - is how the experienced dog trainer can walk away so easily knowing that the dog had already done the damage, even if he believes that it was defense driven, and if I were reported to the authorities back then, the next bite could cost the dog it's life.
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