Today has been a very bad day. We had to put one of our Boston terriers to sleep today. She was two years old, sweet but very timid around new people. We’ve tried socializing her, but she was always just a timid dog. Once she got to know you, she’d lick you to death, but it was a long process.

The boys had a friend over that the dog didn’t know very well. I told the young woman (18) several times, not to rush into the dog, ignore her until she comes to you, then you can pet her. The girl was a bit high strung and making the dog nervous so I shut the dog up in my room with me. A while later I was letting her outside to go to the bathroom later the girl reached out to the dog as she was passing by and the dog bit her.

We can’t have a dog that bites, our daughter was severely mauled when she was young so perhaps we’re more sensitive to the situation. It was one of the hardest decisions we had to make. Everyone feels awful even though it was the right thing to do.