A good owner would never have put an anxious German Shepherd into that situation.  They may have owned GSDs before but they don’t understand the breed. I’m trying to be polite about it.  A few of us from the other forum have owned dogs like Major. They needed strong leadership and management and to never be put into a situation where they had to interact with strangers in a regular basis.  He was a rescued dog, not one with a good pedigree and strong nerves.  I’m very relieved they found another home for him.  But they are also clueless.  

Jeri (azpaints) said...

So you believe that it is always a bad owner never a simple conflict of personality?

Training a dog not to bite a human is the utmost priority of a dog owner. If they can't do that themselves, then they should have the dog trained by experts who can train them properly.

Jeri (azpaints) said...

Getting the dog a good home is responsible ownership.

A good home would have taught the dog not to bite or had professionals train him not to bite. On that front... it looks like a bad owner!

FWIW

It’s even more complicated than that.  The dog was a rescue and supposedly never bit anyone until it was at the White House.  After the first, bite, if I was my rescue, I would have removed him from the situation.  Rescues are harder to retrain once they have started to bite.  The new dog is a puppy and hopefully not inclined to bite random people.  

OK then... from a dog loving perspective... and I'm not afraid to divulge my age...

I was born in 1958... that's the Chinese calendar year of the "dog"... LOL... so I'll start from there.

The dog was previously rescue and had never bitten anybody before. He was used to the quite of his own home and only family members around.

All of a sudden, he's brought to the White House. He was used to romping around outside (in a fenced in area) with only family members around but now, in the White House, he immediately has contact with literally tens if not hundreds of unknown faces near by.

Usually, Joe or his wife let the dog out of the house or cage where ever he was kept to run around and play. Now, at the White House, having Joe or his wife take the dog outside is a possible security risk, of which the dog himself knows nothing about. So they have a staff member take the dog outside.

Major bites the staff member that let him our or somebody else in the White House. After the first bite, that dog should have been restricted to family only areas and not allowed outside that area unless a family member took him out. If that's a security risk, then discussion of taking the dog back home should have been started right then and there.

Then another bite... at this time, mandatory removal of the dog from the White House should have been demanded. But apparently, he bit several more times. That should have never escalated past the 2nd bite. The first bite... forgivable with reluctance. The second bite... no way... out of there. There never ever should have been a third, fourth or more bites!

Rescue or not. A biting dog is not welcome around a lot of people and there are always lots of people at the White House.

Nuff said.

FWIW

I agree.  The dog had 8 bites in a week before they finally let him back home.

They have shown the world they can’t handle a dog. They should stick with the cat.  They don’t have time for a German Shepherd, someone else will raise and own the dog.  It will literally be the handler’s dog but owned by the Bidens.  That is not good ownership.  They are pretending they are going to be the owners and handlers, but in reality someone else is doing all the work for them.  In the show world, they happens, but show owners don’t pretend they are the ones doing the work.  I need to invite Selzer to weigh in.

Would you please respond to this? You have more dog experience than anyone I know.

It they wanted a dog, they should have gotten a toy poodle.

FWIW

Poodles need training. They are active dogs. I just got scratched by one when I tried to say hello.  She ran up my leg. 

I think that just about all animals that we keep as pets need training.

But the bigger the animal, the more ferocious they can be and thus the larger the animal, the more meticulous training would be required. (i.e. an elephant vs a hamster, a Great Dane vs a parakeet, a horse vs a poodle, etc.)!

FWIW