For dogs that are excessively aggressive and who have not responded to behavior modification or rehabilitation there is another alternative... This is to file down and remove the teeth so that the dog no longer a danger to others. What are your guy's opinion on this? Is it humane? Is it necessary?

Steven_L wrote:

For dogs that are excessively aggressive and who have not responded to behavior modification or rehabilitation there is another alternative... This is to file down and remove the teeth so that the dog no longer a danger to others. What are your guy's opinion on this? Is it humane? Is it necessary?

Excessively aggressive dog that can not be helped by training and other forms of rehabilitation are NOT happy and really have no quality of life. Filing or removing teeth does not help the dog, it will still have aggression.

Short of putting them down, the only use I can think of is to turn them into gaurd dogs in junkyards and places where they need to be left without human contact to do thier job.

I had the chance to meet two such dogs about 25 years ago. I was dating a girl who's father owned a junkyard. The property was about 20 acres and was surounded by a 16ft high fence. The dogs were turned loose at closing time and lured back into a 20'x20' outdoor kennel every morning. The only human who had ANY contact withthem was the owner and he never had direct contact. He would put the food and water in the kennel then open the outside gate. When the dogs entered the kennel area he would close the gate by use of a chain driven electric motor attached to the gate.

It was kind of sad, but he WAS giving them a job. The only other option was to put them down.

Yes, the consideration of the quality of life is really important. As people that try to understand dogs and the way they think...I really wonder what goes through these kinds of dog's minds... could they be physically ill? It would seem unnatural for a dog to be so aggressive...and I guess to an extent it IS unnatural for a social creature to be "unfixable".

I personally don't like this idea, putting aside the idea that the dog is not even happy to begin with. I think this has the potential to turn into another shock collar type situation. Where this should be the last resort but people start turning to it too quickly.