Toby

Toby came to NYC Shiba Rescue (NYCSR) in November of 2007 and was about 4 years old at the time. He had level 1 heartworm disease and had been in a municipal animal shelter in southern NJ after being surrendered by his owner. Toby adjusted fairly well with his first foster family. Even during his time taking meds for heartworm, he was the perfect patient at the vet. He didn’t like very hyper or active dogs and was very aloof and conservative when meeting new people. Toby also showed some dominance traits and tried to “discipline” his foster family by using his mouth. After a few months of foster care, he bit a friend of his foster family during a football game. We felt like he was uncomfortable with the high energy and sudden movements taking place in the house during the game. Not long after that, Toby also bit a child visiting. They had a nice day playing and enjoying each other’s company. Later in the day, the child by accident, slid off a couch and fell on Toby. This unexpected action startled him and caused him to bite in reaction. After this incident, we then decided to move him to a house that did not have such high levels of activity.

During Toby’s time with his next foster dad, John, his level of affection and overall happiness greatly increased. He also seemed to finally adjust to strange city noises and his level of nervousness when experiencing a new place, adventure, or meeting new people seemed to have decreased. Toby liked his new foster home a lot and after about two weeks was more playful, alert, and wagged his tail often. Toby would relax in various degrees when meeting children and some strangers, however. He would sniff them and depending on his comfort level either allow himself to be petted by them or sometimes act very shy.

While, he had become very attached to his foster dad, Toby still showed signs of discomfort if he felt someone had cornered him or trapped him in a small space, even if it wasn’t intentional. Toby did not like when people would “sneak up” behind him and pet him or try to play a surprise game of tag with him or make him jump to get him revved up to play. John consistently kept working with him and trying to help Toby understand that everything was ok.

Toby then bit a friend of John’s, who was visiting the house, during some play. From what we understand, there were no warning signs from Toby and sounds as if nothing had provoked Toby to act in an aggressive manner. This was Toby’s second serious bite and had to be reported to NYC Animal Care and Control facility.

At this point, we were forced to re-evaluate Toby’s personality. We work hard to give every dog in our care a chance to find a forever home and live “happily ever after.” That often involves extensive training, re-training, and socializing of dogs with issues. We don’t give up on any dog we feel is redeemable. However, to re-train a dog who doesn’t have appropriate bite inhibition, we have to be able to define the triggers that are causing the incidents. If a dog is truly unpredictable, we cannot retrain him or trust him to be safe. In addition to the dogs we rescue, we have a responsibility to society to be as sure as we can that every dog we place into a home is predictable and safe. We realized that Toby would never meet that standard and we would never be able to ensure a foster or adoptive home that he wouldn’t injure someone. Our only course of action was to have Toby humanely euthanized by our veterinarian. Our president, Zennia, met with Toby and took him to one of our most trusted vets on his last day. She made sure he knew he was loved and stayed with him as he fell asleep.

Since NYCSR was founded in 2007, we’ve always known there was a chance that we would have a dog that may not be safe to adopt out, or a dog that could be so ill that we could not take care of it, or an old dog that may pass away. We have tried to prepare ourselves for this day, but that really isn’t possible. Toby is the first dog that we have had to say goodbye to and we will all miss him and never forget him.

For more information on our mission and the standards we set for our dogs, please see http://nycshibarescue.org/what-we-do/