How would your attitudes toward your dog change if he ate your pet rabbit?

How would your attitudes toward your dog change if he ate your pet rabbit?

I love my 5 year old German shepherd. Up until today i always saw him as sort a gentle giant. He's good with little kids as well as my tiny 4 pound chihuahua. A week ago, I came home to my back yard to feed my pet rabbit and discovered that the door to the hutch was wide open. I looked inside and he was nowhere to be seen. (It turned out my sister had played with him and left it open when she put him back) I checked all over the backyard in the bushes behind the shed you name it all over the neighborhood. He was nowhere to be seen. I was convinced he had escaped through a gap in the side gate and suspected nothing else. I collected my dogs droppings yesterday after many days because it had been raining for several days. You could imagine it was very soggy. The rain did a little more than make an unpleasant task a little worse. In a pile of droppings I saw unusual amounts of fur and hair uncovered by relentless drops of pounding rain. My first thought was, it couldn't be, Jerry would never do this. Upon closer inspection, I saw a rabbit claw and bits of bone. From that moment, my heart sank. I thought how could he do this? I never saw a trace of blood on him. I always fed him enough, why would he kill and eat Coney? It's hard to imagine a dog as gentle as he could kill and eat a rabbit he had lived with for so long.How would your attitudes toward your dog change if he ate your pet rabbit?Well, naturally I would be very upset if my rabbit got eaten by my dog. BUT dogs are predators and if I left my dog and rabbit alone together without being there to supervise, I couldn't be mad at the dog for his instincts. I would be furious at myself for being an idiot and not watching them and making absolute sure that the hutch is secure.



I'm sorry about your rabbit, but you can't blame your dog for having a prey drive. That's the nature of the dog.



I use to have pet ducks (Mallards) and my husband built a beautiful large enclosure for them in our backyard. One morning our neighbor came over with a baggie of what I though were treats. It turns out if was the beak of one of my ducks. Both duck were attacked and killed leaving nothing behind but for their beaks and feet. I was devastated! From that moment on, I kept the ducks inside until they were able to fly. My fault...ALL my fault!
How would your attitudes toward your dog change if he ate your pet rabbit?
He is a dog, rabbit is a natural food source for a dog. If you must be mad at anyone, be mad at the person that carelessly left the rabbit enclosure unsecured, or at the person that let the dog out unsupervised.
How would your attitudes toward your dog change if he ate your pet rabbit?
Many dogs have natural prey drive and he was just doing what was natural to him. If your rabbit was in a cage all of the time, your dog would never have had the chance to socialize with it. It took a couple months for my dog to leave my cat alone, but I wouldn't completely trust her with it. Dogs will be dogs and you have to forgive him. I know you are going through a loss and that you are upset that your sweet dog would do this, but you have to forgive him and make sure to tell your sister to lock the cage every time she opens it.

Im sorry for what happened to your bunny.
It is instict for a dog especially a large breed of dog to prey on things, a rabbit is simple an animal of prey to a dog, he didn't share a bed with it or anything else so you can't be mad at him for doing what his instinct told him to do, however somone shouldn't have been so careless to leave the cage open and to have not seen the dog chase and catch the rabbit.
My opinion wouldn't much change, since dogs are carnivores and it would be foolish to have a pet rabbit living with one under the same roof!
Simple. I would not change my attitude toward the dog. My sister - how that would be a different story. Unless she is 5 she is the one to blame. Shepherds have a pretty decent prey drive and even though he lived 'near' the rabbit it doesn't sound like he actually ever interacted with it before. Expecting the dog not to eat the rabbit (or at least chase and kill it) would be like asking a cat not to go after your pet mouse when you dangle it right in front of the cats nose. Don't expect your dog to have human emotions. He has no clue that you liked the rabbit. Just a dog being a dog.
Most people forget that dogs are predators with instincts. Just because he's a %26quot;gentle giant%26quot; doesn't mean that he doesn't have a prey drive. I used to have a tiny Netherland dwarf rabbit. One day, I was cleaning her cage and she was running around the room with the door closed. My mom opened the door to ask me something, but didn't close it all the way. A few minutes later, I heard a blood curdling scream, turned around, and saw the rabbit dead in the mouth of my sheepdog. I was very angry with my dog for a long while, but eventually realized that he is an animal and even though I may think that I trained him well and I had trusted him around the rabbits before, he still has a prey drive and a rabbit is a prey animal and I shouldn't expect anything from him. That is why they say that you need to constantly supervise your animals when they are together with other animals (prey animals with predators) or around children. I'm sorry to hear about your rabbit, but don't be mad at your dog for too long. He wasn't trying to hurt you, he's just a dog. :(
As it would have been an instant death from shaking and the rabbit got eaten (not just discarded like a plaything) I would feel sad but not change my attitude towards the dog. It is your sister who should feel responsible.

Prey drive is natural and it only takes a little pet like that to dart unwisely and the dog is unable to stop. One of our dogs caught our cat about a month after we adopted the dog, fortunately I was there to save it and then trained the dog that she was never even to eyeball that cat again without getting into trouble. They lived for nearly 8 years together after that.
If I owned a rabbit, my rabbit would be in an area where the dog couldn't get too, and in a dog proof cage with a lock on the door. Can't blame the dog if your Sister was irresponsible and left the cage door open. A dog is a dog.
My attitude wouldn't change one iota since it is MY responsibility to keep my rabbit safe, and I take that very seriously. I've had both dogs and house rabbits for ten years and have never had a problem.
Dogs are predators and I would never trust them alone loose around even a caged prey animal. It's just a matter of time until their instincts get the best of them. I have a guinea pig and a terrier (who was bred to kill rodents), if that dog ended up killing the guinea pig I would blame myself for not keeping them properly separated and/or secured. The dog was only doing what it was bred to do and I can't fault it for that.
I'd appreciate him even more.

I hate that rabbit but my wife gave it to me for an anniversary present so I can't just kill it or turn it loose.