The Official Raúl E. Esparza "Spread the Love" Thread, Part 3 — Page 72

My doggie is half pit and she's the sweetest thing ever.

My friend had a husky - she was great, but you couldn't take her off the leash because she'd run like the devil. It makes sense, since that's what they're bred to do, though.

I've had all kinds of dogs too, I love them all. I haven't had any small, yappy ones though.

My other friend's family bred pit bulls when they lived in North Carolina. They were very sweet animals - usually it's the people who get them who turn them into the horror story pets you hear about

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oh man, that so describes what happens to me every day when I attempt to walk 3 terriers at once in woods filled with squirrels and chipmunks. Oh my!

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Oh my gosh! Look at her and the cat! So cute! I'm so sorry that she's not with you anymore

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I have a Toy Poodle and she's a total diva, but I love her anyway.

Pit Bulls are actually very sweet dogs. If they're aggressive, it's because they were trained to be so by their owners. The public perception of pits is very much a pet peeve of mine, because it's largely based on media driven hysteria and preconceived notions that aren't backed by any sort of fact. Not to mention the dog fighting. I've done a lot of volunteer and rescue work with pits, and there were countless times when a pit was brought in nearly dead because they'd been involved in a dog fight and left to die on side of the road. Those poor dogs are suffering and dying because of human stupidity and they're still shouldering the blame for it. /soapbox. If anyone is interested, though, there are two REALLY good books on the subject that are at most public libraries:



Here's the website, plus additional info.

Updated On: 7/16/07 at 12:50 AM

Though I love all kinds of dogs, I'm a Boston Terrier girl myself. I was a god mother to one, but she died several years ago this month. Damn fireworks. I remember someone owned one who worked at Studio 54. They are the greatest dogs in the world, and are so easy going. But they snore and oink, and they have nervous problems. I want one so bad. But I also travel too much to have a pet. I would love to be like Michael Cerveris and take my dog everywhere (even overseas) but it's not the right time yet. Alas. My voice teacher has a Yorkie from Germany. She picked her up on the side of the road years ago while she was touring there. She actually gives her commands in German. I almost brought a dog home from Italy, but they are kind of wild and a bit mangy. We really are fortunate to have such great no kill shelters and humane societies because over there strays are a serious problem.

Last year I puppy sat a very large overweight pit bull named Trixie. I loved her so much. She had a great personality and a talent for chewing open canned food. No clue how she did it without getting hurt.

Dogs are wonderful. But a huge responsibility.

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Yes, puppies are adorable but such a handfull. I feel that is is definately best to go with a grown dog especially if you've never had a dog before. I agree about the good nights sleep. I have a VERY hard time waking up in the middle of the night just to take them outside. And you HAVE to do it. And then when it's winter time, they want to play around in the snow for a while before going in. Not. Fun.

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Emcee, I'd say that public perception is actually getting worse. Cities supporting BSL are just spreading more and more misinformation left and right. And the sad thing is that the overpopulation of pit bulls due to poor breeding practices in order to produce more 'stock' for fight is making them more aggressive. Instead of bad traits being bred out, people are breeding aggressive dog to aggressive dog, and all the inbreeding is causing some of the dogs to literally be born crazy and dangerous. It's a relatively small percentage, but every time one of these dogs, or a dog trained to fight/attack, hurts someone, 90% of the time through the fault of the owners, the KILLER PIT BULL!!!! stories are all over the place. And instead of cracking down on dog fighting and regulating pit bull adoptions, cities are choosing to ban all pit bulls because they're so 'dangerous' and . ..grr. Sorry. The whole thing just makes me so angry. Plus, the real kicker is that there are far, FAR more attacks by small dogs like Pomeranians, but because they're not big enough to do real damage, most of the time, we don't get any news stories about those scary, evil killer poms!

Chrysanthemum62001, I love boston terriers, my grandmother used to have one. I have a beagle, a lab/pit mix, a dachshund/terrier mix, and a big old mutt who looks like Benji. ( . . . I can't say no.)

Updated On: 7/16/07 at 01:38 AM

The county next to mine has a rule that pitbull puppies born in a shelter are put to sleep after 30 days if there's no immediate interest in adopting them. It's not out of ignorance, where they think the dogs are evil, it's because there's such a problem of overpopulation. There was an article recently where a shelter in the area basically said that pitbulls have reached the status of cats, and there's just not enough room to deal with all the animals and not enough legitimate pet owners (i.e. not for purposes of fighting) interested in adopting them.

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Updated On: 7/16/07 at 01:51 AM

I'm sure they're doing the best they can; I can't imagine too many shelters relish in giving entire litters death sentences simply because there are too many irresponsible pet owners out there. But it probably gets expensive to ship truckloads of puppies cross country, especially with so many destinations already placing bans. It's sad that so many animals have to suffer just for the sake of keeping them out of the hands of owners that will hurt them anyway.

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