I'm completely devastated. My boyfriend and I recently decided to start fostering. I have worked with dogs for a few years now and when the rescue organization learned this they asked me if I would be willing to take on a "special" dog. He had been in the shelter for about a year. They put him in the prison program where nonviolent inmates train dogs and he was kicked out for showing aggressive behavior toward men. He went into a foster home after the rescue agency picked him up and he was aggressive toward the resident dog. He was also very destructive and tore up their couch because he has severe separation anxiety. He was sent to a kennel where he stayed for many months waiting for a foster or ideally someone who was able and willing to adopt him.Before we officially started fostering they asked me to take him to training classes 1x/week. He displayed aggressive behavior toward some men and was reactive toward dogs and people on a leash. He was also very reactive in the car and would lunge/throw his body at the window anytime a biker or jogger went past the window. He was very unpredictable. Some weeks he would be a model dog at training - no barking or lunging and he could go right next to another dog without stressing out as long as he had a hot dog in front of his face. Other weeks he would be snapping at the trainer, lunging at other dogs and altogether just being uncontrollable. During this time i was picking him up a few times a week to take him on walks through a park and this went about the same way-- some days were better than others. We met with a behaviorist who gave us a plan and that gave us hope that he could be adoptable at some point. They put him on Fluoxetine & Trazadone.We decided to start fostering him after our dog met him. They got along fairly well at first and now absolutely adore each other. He's been in our house for about a month now. He's shown 0 aggression toward me, my boyfriend or our dog. He gets a little rude while playing with our dog sometimes but it isn't really concerning. However, we cannot walk him outside during 'normal' hours. If he sees ANY person -- man, woman, child --- he is losing his mind barking & lunging. It's incredibly difficult to get him to calm down or redirect him. The behaviorist says it's fear based aggression.On top of his aggression issues he has SEVERE separation anxiety. He absolutely despises his crate. We've been working so hard on crate training but we both work FT (thankfully at different hours so he's really not alone very long at all) so he has to go in his crate, especially given his past history of destruction. He barks pretty much nonstop. It was manageable until the other day when he escaped his crate while we were gone. Thankfully he just hung out with my dog - he did pee and he tipped over the kitchen trash can but that's a lot better than what I expected. I spent forever working on his crate to figure out how he got out of it. I fixed what I thought what was the issue and moved on. Yesterday I left the house with my dog and we went to spend time with my family for a few hours. Unfortunately our foster dog cannot safely be around others and it's not fair to keep him muzzled for that long so I couldn't take him along with me. He managed to get out of his crate again. It looks like he was pushing the back panel out with his paws/using his teeth and he climbed out the top. He ripped the carpet out of my bedroom, chewed out a piece of our wall, peed EVERYWHERE (bed, carpet, all over the clothes in the closet) and he tore down the shelves in the closet. I pretty much had a breakdown when I got home and frantically emailed the rescue asking what to do.Given his unpredictable aggression and severe separation anxiety they've determined he's unadoptable and he's being PTS. They've been working with him for well over 6 months at this point and he's maxed out on meds. There's really nothing else they can do. I've been using a calming cap with him to go outside and that's hit or miss with effectiveness. We've had the euthanasia conversation before but it wasn't something i thought would actually happen. I know it's the right thing to do but I'm attached to this dog now.Patches is my first foster dog ever and I feel like i've failed him. I'm taking the day off of work on Wednesday so I can spend the entire day with him and throw a little party with cake, hot dogs and so many snuggles. After that he will be euthanized in our home. He's such a little shit but I love him so much and I don't know how I'm going to cope with this via /r/dogs http://ift.tt/2qO8BMn
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