Justin and his partner rehomed their dog Laurel after she bit a child with no provocation. A trainer said the breed had a high likelihood of repeating the behavior. They found her a new home with a community friend who has no small children, rather than pursue euthanasia or permanent confinement.
We've had to make a difficult decision to give away our dog Laurel. You want to share what happened?
The sh— she bit a child in the face and we don't know what prompted it. There was no provoking of it and And to protect our children and children that come here, we had to make that really difficult decision to find another home for her.
Our choices were to find another home or—
Well, we could kennel her, which would be— she would have to be in the kennel a lot and then also wear a muzzle. And I just didn't feel like that, that was fair to her to do that. And I didn't know why she did it. Like, there was no rhyme or reason to what happened. And so because of that, I can't— we talked to a trainer and he basically said that with this breed of dog, um, that if they do this, then there, there's a very great chance that they're going to do it again and that we can't train this out of her. Cuz we were seriously contemplating not getting rid of her and working with her, but when we were told that information by a trainer that we trust that works with working dogs, he said that they either do this or they don't. And so he had a dog that did this, and he has many of these dogs, so— and there was one in particular that, that continued to do this. So it's been a really hard time making that decision, and we found a friend who has no children and their grandchildren are older It seemed as though it was small children that this was a small— a smaller child that this happened to. So I also did some research of my own and found that this is common also in younger children, so So we found some—
I guess the good news in all this is we found somebody within this community, the homestead community, a friend of ours that is older, and she's going to a good place. I mean, we didn't have to put her down. We got her going to a place where, yeah, there's not going to be as many children around, nearly as many children around, and they, they know all about this.
Like, we were very upfront about why we could not have her here anymore, and this person is a friend of ours and has spent time with Laurel and our family, so we feel very comfortable.
Yeah, so, you know, so she's being kenneled here and put up a lot, or going to a place where she can be more free. They have a garden. They have maybe more time to spend more time with her. Who knows? And we think that she's gonna be very happy there. She's already been there a number of days and she settled down and it's hard because we miss her and she was part of the family and yeah, we do hope to go see her. We want her to settle in though first. Yeah, and kind of get us off her mind and attach to the new people. And then we would hope to go see her.
Yeah, and of course, you know, it's been very difficult on all of us to make this decision, and there's been lots of tears, and we're just adjusting to this new normal without her, which is difficult. And, you know, it's one thing we were told many years ago by somebody who we look up to that we're gonna have to make hard decisions in life, and this was definitely one of those really hard decisions. And we just want to let you guys know, you know, what happened there. And the child is— that she bit is completely fine. Um, it all healed up and it didn't require any medical intervention. It was, it was very superficial, but yeah, I believe that it was just a warning to Justin and I that something had to be done, but this wasn't something that we could just say, oh, no big deal. We had to take this seriously, and we fully anticipated when we got Laurel over a year ago that she was gonna be with us for forever, you know, like, we just didn't anticipate this happening at all. So yeah, it's been really difficult and She's a sweet dog and we miss her deeply.
Yeah, and so we just wanted to share this with you guys because we sense a feeling of family and community and you guys are wonderfully supportive through our injuries, through our losses, through our ups and our downs. And this is one of those downs and we like to be real on this channel and talk about real things and we are real people making real decisions and Whether you agree right or wrong, uh, we appreciate everyone that comes along there with us and just understanding that and being there with us in this journey. So thank you so much.
If I had to start my Homestead all over again, it could only pick one animal… 
