Man Killed By Rottweiler He Adopted Hours Earlier

A pit bull wouldn't have taken so long.

Live and learn, or something like that.

Kay is right. If the dog had been abused, if the man accidentally did something that made the dog think he was going to be harmed again - you bet he'd attack.

I bet he never declared dominance before he took the dog into his home, either. With an adult male, you don't know if you have an Alpha or aggressor - you put that dog on its back and stand with your hand on its abdomen for a few minutes before you take it out alone. If you have an untrained alpha or aggessor, you'll know it right then and there.

Another possibility? Dog might have been fed gun powder and been crazy as hell - or perhaps crazy from something else.

You take a stray adult dog with the power to kill you into your home - you better know that breed upside down and sideways - and you still have to be damned careful.

BTW - that dog in the pic is not a full breed rot. Wonder if he escaped from a fight ring?

Weird, sad story.

"Anthony Riggs, 57, adopted the 5-year-old male Rottweiler from Jackson-Madison
County Rabies Control"

The man may have been thinking that the dog was "good to go" and; therefore, did
not take adequate caution.

I am very surprised that it was adopted out intact, and after only three days.

I have never been to any shelter or governmental animal control facility that did not hold
animals for a week or more before adopting out. I've never seen one that did not have
the animals vaccinated, fixed (or at least scheduled to be fixed) and behaviorally tested
before letting them be taken to the adopter's home.

The most unusual thing I've ever seen at a shelter or animal control was a fox/dog hybrid.
It did not look well, healthy, and domesticated. I was very surprised that they were even
trying to adopt it out. It was in the Buena Vista, CO area animal control around 1998 or
so. As far as I know, there is not a facility in Colorado that will even attempt to adopt
out a wolf hybrid- maybe a wolf hybrid rescue group, but not a shelter or government agency.

I think it's nature and nurture when it comes to dogs. My last dog would fight if he felt
threatened, or if another dog tried to get dominate with him. Not a starter, but he would
not take any guff - especially as he grew older (and the tumor in his nose was growing).
As a result of his behavior, and my nature/nurture belief, I would walk the outside of the
usual bark park and see what dogs and owners were inside before I would go inside.
Avoid the troublesome dogs and/or owners, or the owners who did not have the strength to
control their dogs.

I'm not sure about that particular shelter, but I do know that around here, many of them
have had their funding cut and often rely on donations to keep the doors open-- a very
unreliable way to pay your bills!

This makes "expediting" adoption more common than it should be in an effort to
reduce the overcrowding, and attempt to address budget issues.

And don't forget, even a perfect system must be maintained by imperfect humans.
Sometimes we trust that someone can handle a situation, maybe they talk a good game,
and seem to know what they're doing-- In reality, these kinds of articles give very
little information on what really happened.

One obvious, but overlooked, question is, why did he want a rottweiler in the first place?

There's too many variables and not enough info to make any assumptions on why the dog did what it did. It's sad that the man died trying to care for a dog that obviously had serious issues along with the physical ability to do serious damage.

I was surprised by it, but my neighbor breeds and trains Chesapeake's to be
service dogs. The kind that help people in wheel chairs. They open doors, retrieve
things from the fridge... Just goes to show nothing is definite when it come to dogs.

It's my understanding that the shelters here don't even try with wolf hybrids because they are very unpredictable and if the wolf is strong in the animal, it might only respond to one special alpha human, or just a few alpha humans. Also, the flight or fight response often triggers much faster in wolfs causing the dog part of the animal to get aggressive in response to the fear. Then you have the fact that most counties and cities don't allow wolf dogs.

I saw one in boarding that looked pure wolf, huge jaws and teeth, and over 6 feet tall when fully stretched up to greet you with kisses. He tried to lick everybody to death and they said was never aggressive or wolfish at all towards humans or animals. I owned a dog that maybe had some wolf in her - a tiny bit - and she was a total Type C animal. Totally confused if a dog got aggressive towards her - I had to protect her if a dog ever charged her.

Dan

Sadly this is just some bad luck

They check dogs to see if they are aggressive, im sure the shelter wont hand out teeth baring pitbull ferals..

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