[Mayzoo]

I am very glad YOU and Piper are okay. You could have been hurt as well. Yeah, you gotta trust those instincts.

This type of issue is one of two big reasons I went ahead and got Mario accident insurance. He goes with us everywhere, and some places have dogs that I do not know if they are trained or not. We ran across what I think was English bulldog at Lowes the other day. Both dogs were on a leash, but both wanted to play. Mario was working, so he was not allowed to play. But, I still worry some day he will get hurt since his exposure is so much greater, and so many folks do not control their dogs.

We had an Akita mix that seemingly out of the blue attacked our sheep. He killed one and almost killed another. Looking back, the signs were there, but we ignored them out of love for the dog. He had attacked a duck previously, and had bit me once where we rationalized that he just ran into me with his mouth open and he did not mean to bite me. With a special needs child, who was very attached to that dog, we simply cannot take that risk. Akitas, Shih Tzu, etcs....are known as high prey dogs. I did not know that prior to our dog attacking. Now I check that stuff before we get any dog.

Thankfully, Mario's prey drive is very low. He does not even damage his toys while playing with them.