FightingBard, it always amazes me that people who have the least experience with animals make the strongest statements about their potential behavior. Happens quite a lot, in my experience.
(I've had dogs most of my life; my family has owned cats as well; for the past several years, I've been with a lady who has several horses; she grew up on a farm with horses, hogs, cattle, and a variety of other animals; my sister and I have volunteered at shelters; etc.)
My little Jack Russell terrier loves people, and is quite friendly. She does not love, and is not friendly, with the following: moles, rats, mice, spiders, roaches, lizards, frogs, butterflies. She has killed all of those. She hasn't eaten any of them, that I'm aware of. She hasn't killed a squirrel, yet, but she really, really wants to. If she didn't have a bad right hip, I'm sure she'd have been up a few trees after them. (Bone spur as a pup; vet removed the ball joint part of her femur; muscle tone is all that holds the leg in place, and yet she kills lots and lots of small animals.)
When I was a kid, my friend's Siberian Husky got loose, and broke into another neighbor's rabbit hutch. Killed every last rabbit. My friend's parents paid for the rabbits, and also had to place the dog on a farm somewhere.
In my best friend's neighborhood, outside Knoxville, a Boston Terrier (of all things) was roaming the neighborhood, chasing kids, and attacking small animals left and right. It actually killed a couple of other small dogs in the neighborhood. Blount County animal control is a joke. The Boston's owners could not be convinced that their dog was a hazard. It showed up at my friend's place one day and went straight for his Jack Russell / Basenji mix. My friend intercepted it, and kicked it like a football. (He'd have shot it, but that would not have been safe on his street - too many houses.) The Boston avoids his part of the neighborhood, now.
Don't even get me started on cats - and I like cats. But you know, when a kitten lies on its back, and holds a ball of yarn or other toy with its front paws, while kicking at it with its back paws - it's actually practicing gutting another animal. And when a dog shakes a stick or a toy, its practicing neck breaks.
Loving animals is great. Putting them on pedestals is unwise.
(I've had dogs most of my life; my family has owned cats as well; for the past several years, I've been with a lady who has several horses; she grew up on a farm with horses, hogs, cattle, and a variety of other animals; my sister and I have volunteered at shelters; etc.)
My little Jack Russell terrier loves people, and is quite friendly. She does not love, and is not friendly, with the following: moles, rats, mice, spiders, roaches, lizards, frogs, butterflies. She has killed all of those. She hasn't eaten any of them, that I'm aware of. She hasn't killed a squirrel, yet, but she really, really wants to. If she didn't have a bad right hip, I'm sure she'd have been up a few trees after them. (Bone spur as a pup; vet removed the ball joint part of her femur; muscle tone is all that holds the leg in place, and yet she kills lots and lots of small animals.)
When I was a kid, my friend's Siberian Husky got loose, and broke into another neighbor's rabbit hutch. Killed every last rabbit. My friend's parents paid for the rabbits, and also had to place the dog on a farm somewhere.
In my best friend's neighborhood, outside Knoxville, a Boston Terrier (of all things) was roaming the neighborhood, chasing kids, and attacking small animals left and right. It actually killed a couple of other small dogs in the neighborhood. Blount County animal control is a joke. The Boston's owners could not be convinced that their dog was a hazard. It showed up at my friend's place one day and went straight for his Jack Russell / Basenji mix. My friend intercepted it, and kicked it like a football. (He'd have shot it, but that would not have been safe on his street - too many houses.) The Boston avoids his part of the neighborhood, now.
Don't even get me started on cats - and I like cats. But you know, when a kitten lies on its back, and holds a ball of yarn or other toy with its front paws, while kicking at it with its back paws - it's actually practicing gutting another animal. And when a dog shakes a stick or a toy, its practicing neck breaks.
Loving animals is great. Putting them on pedestals is unwise.