Well Meaning Rescuers are Damaging the Pit Bull Breed

I try very hard to avoid bashing the work that other rescue groups are doing. I know that I don’t want to be hung out to dry for my opinions about things, and the way we run Mended Hearts. There’s usually a lot more to the story than what appears on the surface, so some of our decisions may not make sense to the casual observer.

However, there’s one area where I and other Pit Bull rescuers cannot keep silent. It’s absolutely CRUCIAL given the recent damage to this breed’s reputation by careless owners that rescuers understand the correct temperament of a Pit Bull type dog. There are rescuers out there who are doing more harm than good by allowing Pit Bull type dogs with behaviors that belie an incorrect temperament to be placed for adoption.

Now, I realize that we can’t be certain of the breed of a rescue dog. There are breed standards that most Pit Bull rescuers are familiar with, but frankly, many breeds begin to look suspiciously like Pit Bulls as they continue to produce mixed breed offspring. However, would the average person say the dog is a Pit Bull – then it will probably be labeled as one. Annoying, but what do you do?

A correctly temperamented Pit Bull is very human friendly. As I like to tell people, there are no strangers to my dog Joe. Everyone is his best buddy upon introduction. Doubt me? I invite you over. He may pee on your shoes he’ll be so excited to meet you. He may lunge at you in his overzealous effort to rub himself against your legs, but he will never lunge at you in an aggressive manner.

A correctly temperamented Pit Bull has a high bite inhibition. I hardly ever see Pit Bull type dogs fail a ressource guarding assessment. Most are so eager to please ANY human, they will give up the resource with very little stimulation. I’ve had my hands on hundreds of Pit Bull type dogs in the last few years – poking them with needles and microchip implanters, clipping their nails, jamming dewormer down their throats – and I’ve never been bitten by one (I have been nailed by a chihuahua and a doxie).

Pit Bull advocates who have worked tirelessly to change the public perception of these amazing dogs are having their work undermined by well-meaning rescuers who just don’t get it. These “Pit Bull advocates” are further DAMAGING the breed’s reputation by putting incorrectly temperamented dogs up for adoption. Worse – they are putting people at risk of being hurt.

I know they love this breed. I do too. It absolutely kills me when I have to euthanize a Pit Bull because it shows a low bite inhibition or isn’t well socialized towards humans. Yes, it’s the fault of HUMANS that these dogs are incorrectly temperamented and display inappropriate behavior (come back tomorrow for a post about the difference). Humans failed them by breeding them poorly, and socializing them poorly, and now these dogs have to pay the ultimate price. Placing them on the adoption floor isn’t helping them. It’s creating a dangerous situation which can further damage the breed as a whole.

Vick: It’s not just a “pit bull” thing, or even a dog thing. It’s a humanity thing.

Guest Post: Miranda is a Community Outreach Coordinator for Indy Pit Crew, and a foster parent and the Adoption Coordinator for Mended Hearts Indy. She owns 5 pit bulls, all rescues.

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Let’s put aside the dog fighting in itself, and focus on the bigger picture. Michael Vick and his associates, admittedly, horrifically tortured dogs before killing them. Not because they had hurt him or his family but because they did not show the desire to fight, or did not win in a fight that he put them in.

These dogs were beaten, shot, hung, electrocuted, drowned and set on fire. Acts like these done to a human would likely result in a life in prison sentence, or in states that support it, the death penalty.

Michael Vick and his associates did not have to kill these dogs, they chose to do so. That aside, rather than swiftly ending the animal’s life, they chose to torture these defenseless animals, seemingly for their own entertainment. These acts were premeditated and “creative” if you will, from one killing to the next.

Someone who has the capability to fathom and execute such graphic and extensive means to take a life is not a mentally stable person.

Some people argue “they’re just dogs,” and “I just can’t equate animal abuse to child abuse.” These dogs were innocent victims. They didn’t choose to be owned by Michael Vick and his associates. They didn’t choose to fight for their lives in a ring. They had no options, much like children have no options at the hands of those responsible for them. Animals and children are almost completely defenseless and are almost solely dependent on their caretakers.

Some people take issue with the reluctance to forgive and forget what Michael Vick did to his animals. Some of those people don’t understand the depth and gravity of the situation, and equate the crimes to being “heinous, but not comparable to crimes against humans” or have the stance of “it’s time to let it go”.

Knowing the details of how these dogs were murdered, and caring for the physical and often deeper emotional scars dogs rescued from similar situations have, makes it impossible to let it go. These animals don’t have voices and aren’t able to describe the pain they have suffered at the hands of Michael Vick and people who follow in his footsteps. We have to do it for them. For these animals, and those who work tirelessly to educate against cruelty and nurse victims of abuse back to health, we don’t have the option of letting it go.

Perpetuating Pit Bull Myths

It’s so dangum frustrating when animal “experts” continue to perpetuate the myths and stereotypes about pit bulls.

A few weeks ago, Indy Pit Crew had a booth at Pet Expo, one of the largest pet events in Indiana. There was a large indoor pool set up so attendees could try their dog at dock diving. The gentelman running the dock diving exhibit was extolling the virtues of one of the dogs he was demonstrating – a pit bull.

And then he said it… something about their LOCKING JAWS.

For heaven’s sake. Really? That myth has been disproven so many times it’s not even stupid anymore. It’s just boring.

One of the Indy Pit Crew board members, who is also a dog trainer, behaviorist and owns/trains/handles a Search and Rescue dog, went to educate this gentlemen about his erroneous information. He stood firm on his opinion – stating that he’s been rescuing pits for a long time and he knew what he was talking about.

Wow. Just wow.

A representative from another rescue recently made a comment that it was ironic that our rescue pit bull wasn’t the agressor in a spat between her and another dog – a supposed “family breed”. It’s not ironic. It’s not even unusual. I’ve got examples of pit bulls living happily in HUNDREDS of homes with other dogs of all breeds and sizes. Multi-dog households with pit bulls, in my experience, are the rule not the exception.

When animal welfare and pet services people spout incorrect information or make offhand, incorrect statements about pit bull behavior, they unravel the efforts of pit bull activists to disseminate the truth. The battle to save America’s Dog is hard enough without your allies also being your enemies.

Sachi’s Photo Shoot

Our friend Ryne came over to take some photos of Sachi for her Petfinder profile.

I can’t believe this is the same dog that came to me so emaciated she was unable to walk, covered in fleas and blood. I’m so proud of her for pulling through and keeping her sweet disposition despite the neglect she suffered at the hands of her former owners.

See more photos here.

Sachi Update

It’s been a little over a month since we took an emergency foster from Indianapolis Animal Care and Control. We originally called her Sasha Fierce, as she would need a lot of “survivor” strength to get well, but her name has slowly morphed into Sachi.

The other day, Aaron googled it to find out it meant “child of joy”. It’s quite fitting.

Sachi has gained 20lbs since June 18 when she was confiscated and brought to IACC. She looks fantastic. Our vet thinks she should gain about 5 more pounds and then she can be spayed. She’s currently fighting a skin infection that is a result of being completely covered in fleas when she was found. She’s expected to make a full recovery.

Sachi has turned out to be a very driven dog. She’s not going to be able to live in a home with cats or other small pets, as she gets too excited and acts inappropriately. However, we’ve been teaching her important commands such as “wait” and “leave it” and we hope a program of desensitization will help her ignore the cats. Then… maybe she’ll get to experience the joy of sleeping upstairs with mom and dad. Currently, she’s too obsessed with the cats in the other room to settle down and sleep!

She is a very sweet, very loving, very SMART dog. She figured out quickly that the kitchen is where the food comes from, and loves to hang out in there while dinner is being prepped. She’s made no effort to escape our yard, has only had a single accident in the house (my fault!) and isn’t destructive AT ALL. She spends a lot of time quietly in her room, and is just a joy to have around. I love the little click of her nails on the hardwood as she prances around the house.

The only unfortunate fallout from this foster is that we’ve surrendered our other foster, Maxwell, to the Humane Society of Indianapolis. We were managing with crating and rotating the 4 dogs, 2 cats and rabbit… but poor Max was just not getting enough attention. We’ve been visiting him every day, and our friends (employees and volunteers) have been taking extra special care of him. We have a couple of interested people so hopefully he’ll be adopted in a heartbeat.

Media sinking to new lows

What to do when a pit bull attacks. Never mind what the hell this blog post is doing in a business journal, but this whole “article” is just ridiculous.

The absolute scariest/stupidest part is the comment by IMPD spokesperson Jeff Duhamell.

“They are an extremely vicious breed, and they always have been. They’ll come after you,” Duhamell says. “The more you pull way from them, the more they’ll lock down and start ripping skin and muscle.”

Um…

1. “pit bulls” have been around 200 years… and issues with them attacking people have only surfaced in the last 20-30. Evidence of inherent viciousness? I think not.
2. Does anyone think that an opinion of a police officer may be skewed? I would guess the vast majority of dogs they interact with are owned by unsavory types. I’m thinking the dogs owned by unsavory types may be… hmm, unsavory?
3. if every pit bull is extremely vicious, I’m really surprised any of us are still alive. With thousands (tens?) of pit bulls in this country, I’m surprised they haven’t risen up like an army and killed us all!

The author wonders if you can train a pit bull not to be aggressive… like, can you train a labrador not to fetch? (The answer is – pit bulls aren’t typically people aggressive, and YES, you can train a lab not to fetch)

The article then goes on to suggest that you should carry pepper spray designed for grizzlies, or maybe a taser. Oh, and don’t take your dogs outside with you. Any pit bull is just jonesing to attack your dogs and you, so the sight of your dogs will stir them into a frenzy.

It absolutely BOGGLES my mind that this “reporter” is so uneducated. It’s one thing to spout statistics and suggest the dog aggression = people aggression link like so many other media outlets have. It’s something different to be so completely ridiculous and uneducated.

One of the comments hit the nail on the head. Next time, maybe the reporter should actually talk to someone who knows something about dogs.

Praise when the media gets it right

Too often, the media takes any opportunity to crucify pit bulls. A few weeks back, a reporter admitted to my friend that it is all about the ratings. Fair and balanced journalism must have died after Watergate.

Yesterday, an unfortunate incident happened at a shelter here in Indiana. A pit bull mix who was recovering from surgery was in a room with signs that he should be left alone. A young boy was curious and entered the room. The dog bit him.

Dog bites boy at animal shelter.

The reporter chose to report the circumstances surrounding the incident with minimal inflammatory language. The article does mention the dog’s breed once, but the headline very easily could have been “Pit bull attacks child in shelter” and could have taken a totally different tone. It’s clear from the article that the child was unsupervised and that the dog was injured.

It was so nice to write a letter to a journalist thanking them for their approach rather than taking them to task for their language and lack of facts.

Are our efforts making an impact changing the media? I certainly hope so.

Update: Another station’s accounts of the attackBoy, 6, mauled by dog at humane society.

Education is KEY to responsible ownership

When I first moved to Indianapolis, my husband and I were shocked and appalled by some of the things we saw in relation to pets.

I cannot count how many times we stopped the car to grab someone’s dog that was wandering the streets. Frequently we would find the owner and be met with nonchalance. Whoops, he got out. Oh, I forgot to put her collar on.

While accidents DO happen (my dog sneaked out once while being dog-sat), the casual ownership I witness here in Indiana is very strange to me.

In San Diego, with the exception of off-leash parks and maybe beach towns, you never see a dog wandering around. Leashes are de rigeur. Practically everyone has a privacy fence, or at least chain link. Before moving here, I had never seen a tie-out except in the pet store.

I can only attribute this strange behavior in Indiana to a lingering farm mentality. Farm animals are chattel, and on many farms, the dogs live outside and work the farm.

I was first exposed to this concept when my mom told me about her life growing up on a farm. They had a dog, and her job was to keep the kids in a particular part of the yard. She lived full time in the yard. When she whelped, they gave away the male dogs and drowned the females in a sack the river. They had other dogs over time, all of which worked on the farm.

My husband’s family owns a ranch. They have two doxies which are their pets and live in the house. The two mutts live in dog houses on the porch. They are the working dogs. They don’t ever come inside. I don’t know if they even recognize the dichotomy.

This is not to say that working dogs aren’t well cared for. On the contrary, I think working dogs are better socialized than many “pets”. My point is that I think this mentality has prevailed, even thought the majority of people no longer live and work on a farm. Dogs are possessions, not beloved members of the family.

When Indy Pit Crew goes into various neighborhoods for our Community Pet Days, I get an opportunity to talk to people about their pets and I overwhelmingly get a sense that they just don’t know any better. They do care about their animals – hell, why else would they continue to feed them? They just don’t know how to care for them.

For example – the woman who brought her 4 dogs, none of which had been vaccinated, altered, had functional collars or any identification. She brought them over one at a time from her home… on a length of chain. Once we talked to her, she got them all vaccinated and micro-chipped, signed up to receive spay/neuter certificates and gratefully accepted collars, a leash, and discount rabies coupons.

I think that educating owners is key to resolving some of the issues that are plaguing the city. Many people don’t know it’s illegal to keep an unsupervised, unaltered dog on a tether. Many people don’t know what “socialization” means. We have a huge opportunity to educate and really make a difference for the animals in our community.

I am excited about Indy Pit Crew’s efforts this year. We’re stepping it up in a big way. We’re going to host our first ever PuppyPalooza, to get owners educated early in the proper way to care for their animal. We’re going to offer responsible owner education sessions as part of our Community Pet Days where we’ll cover the applicable laws and recommended care. A bunch of area trainers have offered to come demonstrate training techniques at our first ever “Train the Owner” day.

Hopefully, our education efforts will reduce and eventually eliminate the attitudes and associated behaviors that create dog problems in our community.

Responding to pit bull “attacks”

There have been 3 separate incidents in the past week in Indianapolis involving pit bulls.

I’m not going to rehash the circumstances around each of the attacks, because frankly, the circumstances aren’t really known. The media does a terrible job of figuring out “what happened” at the time of the incident and most likely won’t follow up with the truth anyway.

I wrote a letter to the editor of the Indy Star after one of the reports, taking them to task for using the term “attack”. The pit bull lunged at an officer after it had been separated from dog it had attacked. Any dog would obviously be stimulated after a fight with another dog. While I understand that in the dictionary sense of the word, “attack” was used appropriately, the reporter made a choice to use inflammatory language that would represent something more serious to the average reader. Hardly balanced reporting.

Inevitably, the conversation will be had regarding some sort of breed specific restrictions. Of course, the online comments section of the newspaper and TV station websites are rife with posts about banning, killing, etc of pit bulls.

Pit bull advocates will continue to remind the media, our legislators, and the public that PET-bulls don’t attack people without provocation. The owners bear the responsibility for these attacks. There are thousands of pit bulls in the city, happily living their life as well-behaved pets.

Someone will try to refute our statements by arguing that one of the owners is a sheriff’s deputy. Surely a law enforcement official is not an irresponsible owner!

The fact that

• the dogs were loose
• one of them was out of date on vaccinations
• it also did not have tags
• oh and, that they attacked someone!!!

proves the point that the owner was irresponsible.

Responsible owners don’t have loose dogs. We ensure that our fences are secure, the dogs aren’t left outside unsupervised (i.e. while you aren’t home), or they are on a leash. Responsible owners vaccinate their dogs, train them, socialize them, and are always aware of what their dogs are doing.

Most often, when talking to neighbors after something of this nature, it becomes apparent that there have been prior issues with the animal. When the public finally understands that these incidents are typically an escalation of a long pattern of issues, they will recognize irresponsible owners as the root cause. We need to educate and encourage our community to take action to prevent these attacks before they happen, not shake our heads after the fact.

Saving Bella

This is Bella. Bella is a 5 year old female pit bull who was brought in as a stray by Gary, IN animal control. She’s got a short ear crop, filed incisors and has been repeatedly bred – sound like a dogfighting victim to anyone else? They don’t think that she was a fighter or a bait dog, as she doesn’t have the telltale scars.

She is, however, a victim. She’s completely shut down, unsure of who to trust. She isn’t dog aggressive and doesn’t resource guard – she simply just doesn’t react at all. Thankfully, I’ve got experience in dealing with scared, shy dogs, courtesy of Ellie Mae, my coonhound mix rescue from Hurricane Katrina.

I posted her on the Indy Pit Crew Facebook page today hoping that folks would pass it on and somehow, miraculously, she would find rescue. And she did, in my own backyard. Humane Society for Hamilton County agreed to take her, provided we could find her a short term foster home as their shelter is currently full. Not a problem there, we already had an Indy Pit Crew volunteer willing to foster her.

HSHC has been on my gold-star list for a while, especially after reading about Nico, the deaf Dogo Argentino they saved from a high-kill shelter in Los Angeles. I have not had an opportunity to work with them, as I live in another county, but have a good friend who is one of their “pit bull angels”. Having them offer space for Bella was a dream come true.

You know the saying, it takes a village? Well, it applies here too. A village, and a powerful social networking tool called Facebook.

1. The independent rescuer, Dawn, who posts the animals at the Gary animal control on Facebook and sends out emails BEGGING for their lives. Gary doesn’t do adoptions, so when the stray hold expires on an animal, their time is up if they haven’t received a rescue commitment. She doesn’t work for the shelter, she has just committed herself to saving these animals, singlehandedly. In the last 18 months, she has saved over 1000. She is truly my hero.

2. The Indy Pit Crew volunteer, Miranda, who brought Bella to my attention, and who offered to foster her

3. The Indy Pit Crew volunteer, Becky, who worked out a vetting arrangement with another rescue group near Gary, and who offered to transport Bella

4. Sherry from We Care Rescue agreeing to pull Bella tomorrow and take her immediately to the vet to get checked out

5. Humane Society for Hamilton County director, Rebecca, who offered to take Bella once space opened up in the shelter

6. Indy Pit Crew volunteer, Mindy, who bought Bella a crate and a “welcome” goodie bag

7. Casa Del Toro founder, Laurie, who agreed to take Bella as a transfer from the Gary “on paper” until HSHC could take her in

7. And me, although, all I did was make some phone calls and send a bunch of emails. The rest of these ladies are the superstars.

Bella’s journey is far from over. We’ll see what the vet says and then we’ll spend a decent amount of time teaching this gal to trust people and how to be a pet, rather than a possession. Those beautiful eyes tell me that she’s worth it.