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Your Dog, Your Responsibility

If your dog is aggressive, you need to own it.

Shefali O'Hara
3 min readJun 18, 2022
Photo by Luke McKeown on Unsplash

I love dogs.

Including dogs that are often considered aggressive, such as Rottweilers. Many people find these dogs scary. And they can be. But properly socialized, Rottweilers can be big babies.

That’s the key, though, isn’t it?

There are certain breeds you should not get unless you have the time and energy required to make sure the dog is not a danger to others.

I don’t think there is actually any bad breed, but there are people who get dogs they really shouldn’t.

When I first got my dog Snowy, I took him to a doggy class.

One of the other dogs at the class was a Belgian Malinois.

Which is a great dog for super athletic, super disciplined folks who are natural leaders. But the guy who owned the Malinois was obviously a couch potato. He could not handle his dog.

He probably saw the dog on TV, thought, wow, what a cool dog, and got one without doing any more research. How much do you want to bet the poor dog ended up in a shelter?

I’ve also known passive people getting a German Shepherd or Doberman thinking that the dog will protect them. The problem is that if you are not an assertive…

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Shefali O'Hara
Shefali O'Hara

Written by Shefali O'Hara

Cancer survivor, Christian, writer, engineer. BSEE from MIT, MSEE, and MA in history. Love nature, animals, books, art, and interesting discussions.

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