Dog Alerts Family To Abusive Babysitter
 

Although horrifying this has a happy ending thanks to the family's dog.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headline...ve-babysitter/

Just couldn't bring myself to watch, Jules.

BTW, everyone calls my DD Jules..:)

Good doggie! :)

Glad that the parents clued in before the dog took matters into his teeth. That could have meant the end of the dog; with no one the wiser...and possibly more abuse for the tot.

Thanks for posting this.

With love, Erika

Glad the owners listened to their dog! A lot of people would've either blown off the behavior or disciplined the dog. Good dog!

OK, I watched it. Good good doggy. I loved how he went up and
kissed the dog. Good Parents too!! I sware, would you trust the
scowling face of that babysitter?:eek:

For some people, every day is Halloween.

She probably had a Mary Poppins costume on whenever the parents were around...and then changed into the Cruella De Ville costume once they were gone.

It seems that animals don't tend to judge by the 'costumes' that people wear, but rather tend to rely on their demonstrated behaviour and associated memories of certain behaviours as well as some extra senses.

Willy the dog dislikes being around anyone who has been drinking alcohol or who has taken any street drugs (he spent the first 3 months of his life with people who engaged in those things to excess).
Ten years later, he still growls at intoxicated people if they approach him or me when we are out in public, eventhough he has not been experienced abuse at the hands of people who indulge in those things since puppyhood.

The dog in this case will likely remember the costume of abuse as well. Sure hope so :winky:.

With love, Erika

I take it, you do not drink..lol

Very rarely...my drinking days were over before they started; thanks to the meds that pickled my liver at age 18.

Alcohol consumption is limited to a glass or two of wine per year. If someone manages to get me to go to a wedding (last one attended was 26 years ago), or something high falootin' like that, I might have a sip of something stronger.

Mind you, I can take a hot bath or shower if I want to look and talk like someone who has had too much of the Coo-coo -boy-joy-juice...
and still avoid the growling dog thing :D.

With love, Erika

I have learned to totally take my dogs' intuition seriously.

Years ago when I had my dress shop in the inner city I used to bring my large dog with me. He was quite friendly but one day he kept barking at a young woman. I told him to shush and then walked over to check things out. Darned if she wasn't stuffing skirts into her bag. I snatched them from her, told her to high tail it out of there before I called the po-po and hugged my mutt. :p

Willy goes pretty much everywhere with me, including work. He stays under the reception desk and few people even know that he is there. Three of the other practitioners also bring their dogs to work and all are very well behaved; mostly remaining out of sight until needed, like Willy.
Willy is guard/protection trained while 2 of the others are therapy dogs and one is a service dog.

The clinical couselor/psychologist has a yellow lab that calms the abused and troubled children that she often works with.

The Acupuncturist has a miniature dashshound that does cute tricks and begs for attention to distract those patients that have a real phobia about needles. How she knows which people to perform for, I can't figure out, but she does so on her own. She also befriends both animal and human patients alike.

The kineiologist/movement coach's blue heeler service dog detects when her blood sugars are too high or low (she's a brittle diabetic), and that dog also has a protective side to her.

The other two practitioners also have dogs, but they are both young and are still being 'clinic trained' so they aren't at work very often yet.
Both are labs (unrelated) and are just coming up to their second year; so they still sometimes revert back to the goofy rump wagging, googly eyed, toy crazy, kid crazy, want to be your lap dog, leg leaning, floor sprawling, eighty pound clumsy puppies if anyone so much as looks at them for more than 2 seconds :D.

Dogs... got to love them :)

With love, Erika

I would trust the instincts of a dog probably before I'd trust a humans instincts. Dogs just know.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! I need a doggy hug.:)

(((((((:hug: ))))))))

How about a cyber doggie hug from Willy the dog...and me too?

With love, Erika

OMG I am so jealous! What kind of dog is Willy?

I was just going to ask that

Now here is a service dog I'd love to have....Sooooo cute!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc0BGlWWvrE

Oh yes! Now wouldn't that little dog come in handy as a service dog :)

Willy is a Chesapeake Bay Retriever / Border Collie cross with dominance in the size (85 pounds), general appearance, behavioural intensity and talkitiveness (many of them talk in growls, yowls and soft barks) of the Chesapeake.

Dogs 101 chesapeake bay retriever - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMxInd9Qu2Y

His intelligence, sense of order, nosiness and bossiness is pure Border Collie though.

Dogs 101: Border Collie : Video : Animal Planet
http://animal.discovery.com/tv-shows...der-collie.htm

The combination can make him the 'bad mother-in-law' of the dog world or an extremely energetic and often comedic playmate...depending on the circumstance of course. :D

With love, Erika

Wow quite a combination. I'm fairly certain I'm not smart or quick enough to have trained that pooch. ;) There are a lot of Chessies around here and their history is very interesting.

I had some experience in dog training. We often fostered "problem" dogs from the SPCA and trained them so that they could be more easily placed. Also used to breed and show Great Danes and had Border Collies on the farm, both of which require a firm, yet loving hand; but with Willy I had help with training him.

So how did I end up with him? At four months old and basically starving, he was one of seventy dogs that were rescued from a reservation near my community. He spent the next 8 months at the SPCA, during which time he was nursed back to health, neutered, then adopted twice and fostered twice by four different people.
All returned him as either too aggressive and/or untrainable.

When my previous dog passed away, my first stop was the SPCA and it was love at first sight. He was in a group play yard and was busy amusing himself with a large ball while the 10 or so other dogs either barked at the fence for attention or sniffed around oblivious to me and the SPCA attendant standing at the gate.

"He's ball crazy" said the SPCA attendant when she saw me looking at him and smiling; and then she gave me his history, punctuating that with "He chases trucks, motor cycles, bikes and cats...and he bites whatever he catches up to including the tires of vehicles."

'Excellent' I thought. Here's a dog that can be trained with a ball as reward and one that has energy to spare. All he needed was some direction for that energy in the form of a job; so I gave him one. Be my constant companion and protector.

With help from a friend that is a master dog trainer, within a year, Willy was well on his way to being trained as a protection/guard dog, yet because of the way in which he was being trained (Schutzhund style, where everything is a game that ends in play as a reward), his playfulness only intensified.

Police dogs are also trained this way. That is why they are so excited and their tails are often wagging when they are working. The actions of the 'play mate' (AKA the aggressor), dictate the intensity and nature of the game that will be played. The handler's job is to direct the dog how best to play it so that the dog gets the reward sooner.

Willy's training has been ongoing ever since he came to live with me, mostly because he likes it so much. Practicing (playing) with him is something I can do no matter how I'm feeling because all that is needed is a ball. He really is ball crazy and will always pass up treats if there is a ball in the picture.

Every month or so he goes to the trainer's for a couple of days of 'vacation' where he gets to practice (play) with new people and new situations. All I have to do is mention the trainer's name and he's got his ball and is heading for the truck, tail just a goin'. He's as fickle as they come when it comes to play time.

So now, because he has practiced with many 'new' people and situations, even if Willy is called upon to go into protection mode (very rarely), to him it is just a game with a potential 'new playmate'. He just sees it as another opportunity for having a good time :).

With love, Erika

He sounds delightful and I love that you noticed the ball focus as a positive. My male presa, who was also a rescue, is very food motivated and he has the best "come" recall of any of the dogs I ever have owned.

I have had an Akita, a Tosa, now a Presa and a Presa/Corso mix so I'm no stranger to head strong mutts. ;)

Wow Jules,
That is quite a lot of BIG, wrapped up into two doggies.

Willy met a Corsa female last year at the trainers and he's never been the same since. Apparently he was all over her like a love sick teenager...until she straightened him out that is. Priceless :D

The trainer said that they are lovely dogs in the hands of the right people. You must be one of those 'right people' to have two of them :).

The dog that passed before Willy came was an Akita-Dane cross. He was striking in appearance but just a gigantic mush ball of friendly.

With love, Erika

Wow, I can't imagine an Akita-Dane cross he must have been beautiful. My Akita wasn't dog friendly but loved people also. He was quite a goof, omg I miss him.

Hilarious that the presa girl had to set appropriate limits on your boy! My female is very particular about the manner in which boys approach her also.

They are challenging and I'm not sure I would go with quite such a physically active mix in the future. I shy away from the Border collies and Aussies for that reason, lol.

I had a few scuffles with the male as a tiny puppy that needed to be addressed. He is the love of my life but determined that he will run things so although he has learned Mom always wins in the end it remains a life long challenge.

I'm not getting any you nger so in the future I think I will go a bit toned down, maybe a Pit or Bull Mastiff/mix? :)

Jules,

Willy's trainer also runs an animal rescue and personally adopted a wonderful female pit bull terrier 4 years ago that was surrendered by the estate of a fellow who had passed away.
My goodness, what a sweet dog...nothing but gentle loving in the soul of that girl. They really are lovely dogs in the right hands.

The Akita-Great Dane "Mike", was also a gentle, loving soul; and was my late husband's constant companion for the 11 years that he was with us.

When Bob's health deteriorated to the point where he was bed-ridden, Mike seldom left him and would most often be found laying next to him on the bed.
Mike passed away from a bowel twist a few months before my husband died of brain cancer.

I know that they now walk through the cool, green and shady forests of heaven together, as they so enjoyed doing here on earth :).

With love, Erika