Snow Ball

I got this from a WS group that I am in,

From: kschoenharl@gmail.com
Date: 12/30/2008 2:02:27 PM


Hello,
I am emailing to ask some advice and possibly a foster situation. Attached is a picture of Snowball. My nephew and his wife adopted her from the SPCA about 3 months ago. She is a spayed female. They were told that she was about 9 months old, surrendered by a family that had children, however, they lived in an apartment and could not keep the puppy. My nephew and his wife and children (age 6 and 9) have had a good experience with Snowball until last night. My nephew apparently disciplined her (incorrectly in my opinion) for going to the bathroom in the basement by pushing her nose into it and then hitting her on the head! He then tried to get her to go into her kennel (which was introduced only about 6 weeks ago after she got tangled up in the living room shade!). Snowball bit my nephew on his hand as he was trying to get her into her kennel. He and his wife don't feel they can take a chance on her as they have 2 kids and his wife also babysits.

My partner and I considered fostering her as we have fostered dogs (not with a formal rescue agency) that we have found throughout the years. We have, however, 7 of our own dogs and have been working on dominance issues between two of them for about a year now. We are concerned about fostering Snowball since our assessment is that she bit out of fear. Bringing her into our "pack" may produce fear or nervousness and we have 2 of our dogs are under 10 pounds. One of our small dogs lost an eye in an attack by a friend's dog in a fear based situation years ago.

So my questions to you are:
1. What would you do if you were us? They are planning to take her to the SPCA if we cannot foster her or find a home. They also feel they should tell the SPCA that she did bite so that they don't put her into a situation were she could bite children. I assume Snowball would be euthanized.
2. Does Destiny's rescue have an appropriate foster situation? If not, from this brief description, do you have any advice?

More info about Snowball. She is extremely sweet and affectionate - even when she first meets people. My great niece and nephew age 6 and 9 have played with Snowball a lot without incidence. Snowball has slept with the 6 year old often. She apparently did not have any accidents until they started putting her in the basement or in the kennel occasionally. I suspect that Snowball either gets a lot of attention or not enough depending on the day and time. I have just been around her twice and found her quite calm and sweet. She has been around another dog and from what they said, she just wanted to play with this older dog (could not determine from their description if she was dominant or submissive - I suspect submissive but possibly due to her age).

Thank you in advance for your time!
Karen Schoenharl

If she is taken to the SPCA and they tell them that she has bitten , she will be euthanized.