My wife and I recently had the misfortune of being referred to Sara Scott for help with Mac, our rescue Pitt who is anxious and exhibits fear-based aggression. We absolutely love Mac but we recognized there was some room for improvement in his life and ours (like being able to have friends over without Mac getting stressed and friends getting barked at!), and we were excited for Sara to lead us on a journey of confidence building, desensitization, and counter conditioning. We were prepared for recommendations to give Mac more exercise, nuanced critiques of our actions, reactions, and timing during training activities, and a lot of homework. What we were not prepared for was Sara to spend an hour and a half asking us questions, and then without taking the time to meet Mac or witness any of his behaviors for herself, suggest that Mac be euthenized.
Of course we were devastated to hear such a diagnosis/prognosis of a dog that we have come to love deeply, but it was not just her conclusion that has earned this negative review. Subjectively, I disagree with Sara's conclusion (as does every person I've discussed this with who has ever met Mac--and inevitably been barked at by him!--including Mac's veterinarian). Objectively, I believe it is irresponsible and unethical to make such a severe and final prescription without taking any time to meet the dog or witness the problem behavior for yourself.
During Sara's visit we spent over an hour discussing Mac's problem behaviors (namely barking at guests, snapping at some dogs when on leash, and resource guarding of "his people") and daily routine. It seemed appropriate at the time that we would thoroughly cover all of the negative aspects of Mac's life, given that these were the reasons we sought the help of a professional. However there was a lack of strength-based questioning to ascertain when Mac seemed the happiest, or whether we felt that Mac enjoyed life and why. This negative focus is likely what led Sara to conclude that Mac has a very poor quality life. Had we known that we were not just covering our concerns and areas for improvement, but also advocating for our dog's life, we certainly would have spent more time talking about the positive elements of Mac's life and the things that regularly make his tail wag.
To her credit, Sara did appear to demonstrate a solid understanding of canine psychology. Her interpretations of Mac's behavior (as described to her) and attribution to anxiety or former trauma made perfect sense, and seemed like they would make a great starting point for informing a training plan. However, Sara was not interested in working with Mac on an ongoing basis, or even suggesting techniques, useful resources, or any constructive feedback during her visit. She did identify various deficits in our home environment (fences are too short, deck provides line of sight to the street which is distressing, etc.) in support of her assessment that "our home was unsuitable for Mac", however, she presented these observations with a sense of futility rather than calling them out as room for improvement or suggesting we change anything (e.g. fence height can be increased, view from deck can be obstructed, white noise machines are readily available on Amazon, etc).
When all was said and done, we had exchanged $175 and an hour and a half of our time for little more than a sense of hopelessness and resignation which took several weeks to recover from. This was a truly awful experience that I wish I could have avoided. read more