I read this on msnbc.com this morning: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10653223/site/newsweek/

Has anyone had a similiar experience? What do you all feel about how the situation was handled? We had a similiar experience in our household with one of our cats who would periodically viciously attack on of our other cats and anyone who intervened to stop it. My father was very badly bitten in the hand during one episode and the same cat clawed me in the face during another (standing jump of two feet right at my face...). It turned out he had a massive infection in his mouth that required his teeth to be removed. After that he has been a lot happier (the same infection/disease had also afflicted another one of our cats who also had his teeth removed and is doing much better).

It is sad that signs of increased aggression were ignored ... Perhaps if something had been done then, this would not have had to happen. It seems like Jack's family handled the situation the best way that they could have, trying to get advice from the vet and taking Jack out to the park one last time.

Too bad, and I'm sad for all the parties involved, human and nonhuman.

Also, I'm glad that you were able to find out what was going on with your cat and improve the situation. :) If only they were all happy endings.

I'd like to know the reason(s) why Jack was becoming increasingly aggressive. There was no explanation in the article. Is that a characteristic of all Dobermans, or was there some other, more individual reason? (Perhaps a tumor growing on the brain that was never caught?)

I think it's still sad that it happened to a pet that was obviously loved.

Reading that made me cry. :(

Ignoring the earlier signs of increasing aggression was a huge mistake. I hope they learned that lesson, I'm just sorry for all of them (including the dog) that they learned it the hard way.