My brother wants to put down my dog because he growled at my niece after she taunted him all day.

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I fostered a multitude of dogs in my life and dealt with a lot of behavioral problems.

Dog aggression, cat aggression, food aggression,

separation anxiety, super high prey drives, I've seen it all. And I've certainly encountered my

fair share of dogs who weren't safe around small children. So I feel extremely confident in saying

my current five-year-old lab is safe for kids. He's basically a giant teddy

bear and loves everyone. However, it's always been my personal philosophy that dogs and any other

animal really should never be left alone with young kids, even if it's the sweetest, most mild-mannered

dog in the world. The kids don't understand when they're pushing the dog past its

limits, and the dog cannot reasonably be expected to put up with being harassed long after

it signaled that it would like to be left alone. My niece has never been good with my dog. She

pulls his tail, climbs on him and lays on him, hits him, pulls his ears, gets in his face and yells at him

and never gives him a second to himself unless she's forced to. Meanwhile, he's basically a saint

with her, but every dog has its limits. I stay as on top of this behavior as I can, forcing her to

leave him alone when it starts to seem like too much,

and locking him away in the bedroom if she won't. My brother and sister-in-law really just don't get it,

though. I've tried to talk to them about this behavior a bunch of times, and they know it's wrong,

but they think it's wrong in the same way that her refusing to share or not picking up her toys is wrong.

They don't understand that it's dangerous and that if she was left alone long enough,

my dog might lose it and attack her. This has been going on for over a year. I've tried to have

this conversation with my brother over and over, but he always acts like I'm criticizing his parenting,

...