Tag Archives: animal rescue

Perceptions of the Pitbull can Change.

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Boxer Pitbull mix Socializing with a Golden Retriever

I have been bringing my dog Rocky (boxer pit-bull mix) to pretty much all of my son’s  baseball games this year and I noticed something his last game we were at.  Normally when I bring rocky to almost any public area, I get mixed results, people stare sometimes with that look like why in the world would I bring a pit-bull to where kids are right? I have actually heard people say this to their kids who want to come and pet Rocky, they usually say something along the lines of “Stay away from the dog, he’s too big and might bite blah blah blah” or whatever people say. Since he is mixed, a lot of people assume he is either a boxer, or a pit-bull and some actually get it right that he is both. I have had people come up and pet him not thinking he was a pit, and once I tell them he is a pit boxer mix, the look on their faces is priceless, the instant fear in their eyes and they dont know how to react, usually it’s just like “oh, he doesn’t act like a pitbull”. really? whatever.

Anyways, so I think most people have seen me with Rocky now at these games and all of sudden people have been coming up to pet him without any fear, adults, little kids and even older people. There was even a point where 6 little kids from another team around the ages of 5-8 were all there at the same time petting him. I also noticed how calm Rocky was, even with all these strange people coming up to him, wagging his whip of tail fast, getting the body wiggle going, which everyone seems love, how hard his tail is, it’s pretty funny.

I use to fear not that he bite anyone, but that he likes to jump up on people, and he is quick, so I was always cautious of that because he is about as tall as the little kids, especially on his back legs. I think the fact that he is out in public with all these other dogs, and people of all ages I personally can see the change in him and the people around that meet him. You can from the picture above that he is just relaxing around another dog that one of the other parents had there, normally the parent wouldn’t bring his golden around Rocky, but all of sudden he did, and they played a little bit, and I think people saw that and realized maybe my dog wasn’t a dog fighting machine that would maul you. I know, sounds stupid, but that’s the first thing people think when you hear pitbull, Dog Fighting, and Mauling. Unfortunately that’s the assumption that pops in most people minds when they are in front a pitbull type dog.

I think it’s important to show that it’s not the dogs that are aggressive, but how they are raised and trained. Obviously there is always going to be a dog that is aggressive, but for the most part, if you train your dog, socialize it around other animals and people, this will help release the fear of people and of the dog. I believe that any dog, big or small can change stereo types and preconceived perceptions that cause those fears.

Congratulations also to my son’s baseball team as well, they have won two in a row.  :-)

Dog Bites

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Pitbull from Little Rascals Petey

Petey from Little Rascals

There are a lot of people out there today who have an opinion on whether specific breed targeting (“banning”) is a good thing or bad thing. Most advocates of the BSL (Breed Specific Legislation) believe that certain types of dogs should be banned, and in some states and countries this has already taken effect. Others believe in the punishment for the crime, not the breed. I believe that this debate will  go on forever; you will have people on either sides that are unable to hear the other side’s point of view. 

At the moment “Pitbulls” are the number one target for persecution.  It usually ends being what the popular dog of the day is, and pitbulls are that dog today. Just look at Petey there to your right, Pitbulls were loved when the media showed them for something other than violent, vicious man eating dogs  like they did in Little Rascals. Pitbulls were thought to be loyal and trustworthy a long time ago. Now, unfortuanetly a completely different image pops in the minds of people when they hear “Pitbull”.

All dogs bite, they all have teeth and they all are capable of biting. Obviously getting bit by a German Shepard, Pit or Rott is going to be more severe and damaging then getting bit by a miniature dog such a small Poodle, Shitzu, Pomeranian or a Chihuahua; although you are more likely to get bitten by one of the smaller dogs than the bigger ones.

Why do dogs bite?

Dogs can bite for many reasons; they may bite if they feel threatened, angry, afraid or hurt. I was always taught as a young kid to never show fear to a dog or they will bite. We never owned any dogs when I was a kid, but for some reason I remember being told that and I think maybe these days people are more fixated on what’s being told and shown on TV and through the media instead of thinking about it logically or even really trying to understand the situation.

Yes, there are dumb ass owners out there that do not know how to train or take care of a dog, and sometimes certain things can make a dog more aggressive, like being locked up all the time away from people and other animals, or getting physically and mentally abused.

Pitbull Boxer Mix socializing with a Golden Retriever at a little league baseball gameSocialization is a huge part of a dog’s personality, if they are not allowed to be around people and other animals, they will bite and attack things they fear and do not know.  If you socialize your dog at a young age with people and other animals, in the dogs mind they are no longer afraid of the unknown and they have a better chance of not reacting in a defensive way.

The bond between a child and a dog can be great for that child’s emotional and physical health, but kids need to be educated on what not to do with a dog in the house as well. Young children under the age of 10 usually don’t know how to treat a dog, they think they are toys that they can do whatever they want with. As the parent and dog owner, it’s important that parents are encouraged to show their children how to treat all dogs with the greatest respect for their own personal safety.

Kids Safety around Dogs:

  • Teach them to never go face to face with any dog, or even going down to their level would be bad.
  • Dogs are protective in nature; kids need to know that even though the neighbor’s dog for instance has always been friendly to them, that dogs will almost always protect their own space and the space of their owners. Eating and sleeping areas, yards, porches, and parked cars are some examples. Most dog bites of small children are from dogs that they are already familiar with, like a neighbor’s dog or family dog.
  • Kids should always be taught not to approach stray dogs, you never know what the temperament of the dog is, and better to stay away than to take a chance with a stray. No different from telling them to never talk to strangers.
  • Sick or injured dogs may be afraid or irritable and should be avoided by children.
  • Most children’s dog bite injuries occur during play with a dog they know. A dog that is excited or nervous can bite by mistake. Children should be taught not to play fight, tease, yell at, or chase dogs or other animals.
  • Do not leave your kids alone with a dog, especially children under 10, no matter how good you think your dog is.

Dog bites can happen with any dog at anytime, in my opinion to single out one breed as more dangerous as another is irresponsible and ignorant. The reason I believe people are so quick to judge the pits, rots and other labeled “dangerous” dogs is fear, or just plain don’t understand it. The media loves dog bites involving Pitbulls and Pit mixes and they will cause more fear than good from doing so.

Now, on the other side of that is some dogs when they do bite it will hurt more than others. German Sheppards, Labs, and some other bigger breed dogs are known to bite and bite hard too, but you don’t hear about those as much anymore. When you get a specific breed that is popular, like the pitbull is currently, you get a lot of over breeding, misconceptions, and incest breeding to meet demand. It’s the oldest thing, supply and demand.

I will end this with just saying being a responsible person, whether you are a parent, dog owner, even someone who doesn’t like animals, having at least some basic understanding of dogs will help avoid potential bad situations.  Hope this helps some people understand the fears a little bit more. I know some people are set in their ways and no matter what it’s all blah blah to them, but I think understanding things and how they work is better than just assuming that things should be a certain way. Have a good day ;)

-JW

Rocky a week after his surgery

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So it’s been a week since Rocky had surgery on his ear. Everything seems to be good so far, although his ear still grosses me out a little bit, but hopefully it heals up right. His ear seems to be a little limp compared to his other one, but I am hoping in a couple of weeks it’s back to normal.

Cliff Notes:

  • Rocky is a boxer pitbull who ended up getting an Ear Hematoma.
  • He was playing with the other dog I am fostering (Caleb) and popped a blood vessel in his ear causing it to swell.
  • I had his ear drained twice before having the ear surgery.
  • After the surgery was done, it was found out that he had an ear infection and a ruptured ear drum.

Previous Posts:
My Dog’s Visit to the Vet.
Rocky’s Status
Rocky due for Surgery
Pics of Rocky’s Ear
Rocky back home after his Surgery

Pics of his ear a week after surgery:

 Rocky is in good spirits though, here’s a video of him being goofy :)

Caleb and Rocky Video

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Was bored this morning and thought I would take a quick video of Rocky and Caleb together. I’ll try to get better quality ones in the future, this was just the first :)

I hope this video at least shows how well-behaved both dogs are.

My Veiw on Pitbulls and Parolees Show

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I was checking out the Villalobos Rescue Center (Pitbulls and Parolees APL Show) website today and noticed this disclamer at the bottom of their about page.

“ Visits are by APPOINTMENT ONLY!!
Due to the increasing number of people showing up that have become obsessed fans, stalkers or that think we are a public zoo, we now have to take control of the situation. We are a sanctuary for these animals and the last thing they want or need is someone coming by just to “check them out”. We DO NOT give tours or allow the public to walk around like the animal shelter. Visitations are for those adopting, boarding or training only. This is not only for liability reasons, but for the sake of the privacy of these animals that have already had a tough life.
Please respect that.
If you are interested in visiting, you MUST call and make an appointment.For those of you, who think you’re “special” and are planning on just “dropping by”, we have a surprise waiting for you at the front gate…..
(Link was removed on their site)

It just made me laugh. I can only imagine how many people just randomly show up there now since the show aired.

Basically Pitbulls and Parolees is a show on Animal Planet, documentary type show of a Pitbull Rescue Group. From what I understand that they have around 150-200 pitbulls on any given day on a 10 acre plot of land located in the high desert in California. It’s a really good show, and they do a lot of work it seems like. Not going to dig to much into it, just wanted to share this part that is on their website that I found hilarious. They seem like a group that Works Hard and likes to Play hard as well, fun group.

Animal Shelter Post on Craigslist

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Found this on Craigslist today. I normally don’t post up other people’s things, but I thought this was strong enough to do so. It was posted by someone who is anonymous. It’s a strong opinion and I should be clear it is not my opinion nor did I write this. But reading it I did find it to be a strong message and thought I would post it anyways.

“I think our society needs a huge “Wake-up” call. As a shelter manager, I am going to share a little insight with you all…a view from the inside if you will. First off, all of you people who have ever surrendered a pet to a shelter or humane society should be made to work in the “back” of an animal shelter for just one day. Maybe if you saw the life drain from a few sad, lost, confused eyes, you would stop flagging the ads on craigslist and help these animals find homes. That puppy you just bought will most likely end up in my shelter when it’s not a cute little puppy anymore. Just so you know there’s a 90% chance that dog will never walk out of the shelter it’s dumped at? Purebred or not! About 25% of all of the dogs that are “owner surrenders” or “strays”, that come into a shelter are purebred dogs.

The most common excuses: “We are moving and we can’t take our dog (or cat).” Really? Where are you moving too that doesn’t allow pets? Or they say “The dog got bigger than we thought it would”. How big did you think a German Shepherd would get? “We don’t have time for her”. Really? I work a 10-12 hour day and still have time for my 6 dogs! “She’s tearing up our yard”. How about making her a part of your family? They always tell me “We just don’t want to have to stress about finding a place for her we know she’ll get adopted, she’s a good dog”.

Odds are your pet won’t get adopted & how stressful do you think being in a shelter is? Well, let me tell you, your pet has 72 hours to find a new family from the moment you drop it off. Sometimes a little longer if the shelter isn’t full and your dog manages to stay completely healthy. If it sniffles, it dies. Your pet will be confined to a small run/kennel in a room with other barking or crying animals. It will have to relieve itself where it eats and sleeps. It will be depressed and it will cry constantly for the family that abandoned it. If your pet is lucky, I will have enough volunteers in that day to take him/her for a walk. If I don’t, your pet won’t get any attention besides having a bowl of food slid under the kennel door and the waste sprayed out of its pen with a high-powered hose. If your dog is big, black or any of the “Bully” breeds (pit bull, rottie, mastiff, etc) it was pretty much dead when you walked it through the front door. Those dogs just don’t get adopted. It doesn’t matter how ‘sweet’ or ‘well behaved’ they are.

If your dog doesn’t get adopted within its 72 hours and the shelter is full, it will be destroyed. If the shelter isn’t full and your dog is good enough, and of a desirable enough breed it may get a stay of execution, but not for long . Most dogs get very kennel protective after about a week and are destroyed for showing aggression. Even the sweetest dogs will turn in this environment. If your pet makes it over all of those hurdles chances are it will get kennel cough or an upper respiratory infection and will be destroyed because the shelter gets paid a fee to euthanize each animal and making money is better than spending money to take this animal to the vet.

Here’s a little euthanasia 101 for those of you that have never witnessed a perfectly healthy, scared animal being “put-down”. First, your pet will be taken from its kennel on a leash. They always look like they think they are going for a walk happy, wagging their tails. Until they get to “The Room”, every one of them freaks out and puts on the brakes when we get to the door. It must smell like death or they can feel the sad souls that are left in there, it’s strange, but it happens with every one of them. Your dog or cat will be restrained, held down by 1 or 2 shelter workers depending on the size and how freaked out they are. Then a shelter worker who we call a euthanasia tech (not a vet) find a vein in the front leg and inject a lethal dose of the “pink stuff”. Hopefully your pet doesn’t panic from being restrained and jerk. I’ve seen the needles tear out of a leg and been covered with the resulting blood and been deafened by the yelps and screams. They all don’t just “go to sleep”, sometimes they spasm for a while, gasp for air and defecate on themselves. You see shelters are trying to make money to pay employee pay checks and don’t forget the board of directors needs to be paid too, so we don’t spend our funds to tranquilize the animal before injecting them with the lethal drug, we just put the burning lethal drug in the vein and let them suffer until dead. If it were not a “making money issue” and we had to have a licensed vet do this procedure, the animal would be sedated or tranquilized and then euthanized, but to do this procedure correctly would cost more money so we do not follow what is right for the animal, we just follow what is the fastest way we can make a dollar. Shelters do not have to have a vet perform their euthanasia’s so even if it takes our employee 50 pokes with a needle and 3 hours to get the vein that is what we do. Making money is the issue here not loosing money.

When it all ends, your pets corpse will be stacked like firewood in a large freezer in the back with all of the other animals that were killed waiting to be picked up like garbage. What happens next? Cremated? Taken to the dump? Rendered into pet food? Or used for the schools to dissect and experiment on? You’ll never know and it probably won’t even cross your mind. It was just an animal and you can always buy another one, right!

I hope that those of you who still have a beating heart and have read this are bawling your eyes out and can’t get the pictures out of your head, I deal with this everyday. I hate my job, I hate that it exists & I hate that it will always be there unless you people make some changes and start educating the public. Do research, do your homework, and know exactly what you are getting into before getting a pet. These shelters and humane societies exist because people just do not care about animals anymore. Animals were not intended to be disposable but somehow that is what they are these days. Animal shelters are an easy way out when you get tired of your dog (or cat).

Between 9 and 11 MILLION animals die every year in shelters and only you can stop it. I just hope I maybe changed one persons mind about taking their dog to a shelter, a humane society, or buying a dog. For those of you that care. “

Scared to take my dog to a Dog Park?

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Dog Socializing?

Is this what Dogs do when they get together off Leash?

I know some people love going to the dog parks, having their dog(s) play with other dogs, good exercise and socialization for their pet. Sounds fun. Is it really though? Probably for some dogs it is, while others it’s probably not. I have never actually been to a dog park before, not because I think they are a bad idea, but because I can’t help but worry about how my dog will react to other dogs, and how they will react to him.  

I have had my dog Rocky around other dogs before, whether it’s me fostering a dog, or him just hanging out with my friends dog(s). Even the other day, I had to drop him off at the Vet for his surgery appointment, and while waiting in the waiting area, they had other dogs coming and going. He was fine, sniffing butts, doing what dogs do to get to know one another. They seemed to be fine with one another; then as I was walking with him to the back room, the other dog just snapped at him. You could feel the tension in the room though, since my dog is a Boxer Pitbull, and he does look like a Pitbull to most, so the obvious tension was there, and the look on the dog owners face wasn’t in shock that her dog did the snapping, but you could tell she was thinking it must have been my dogs fault since her precious whatever kind of dog it was(I think it was a Black Shepard or something like that), would never do something like that. Now I should mention that Rocky has never shown aggression towards anything, human or otherwise, even when another dog has shown aggression towards him, he usually does a good job of getting out there. And also I am always present and alert when he is around other dogs and people. Anyways, luckily I pulled him away quick enough so there was no issue, but just something like that makes me think twice about having him at an off leash park.Some people are completely against dog parks, and some people are completely for them. I am on neither side, but I also probably won’t be bringing my dog to one anytime soon. Just out of the fear that if something does happen, the perception on Pitbulls that is already there would automatically assign blame to my dog, and if not, the stories that come from that would not help. 

The stories would probably be something like this:

Dumb Friend of Person at the Park: “There was a dog scuffle at the Dog Park?”  

Person at the Park: “Yep, a Pitbull and a “  

Dumb Friend of Person at the Park: “A Pibull?! Those dogs are horrible”  

Person at the Park: “Well, actually it wasn’t the Pitbull who started it”  

Dumb Friend of Person at the Park: “They should ban all Pitbulls, horrible dogs”  

Person at the Park: “really, it wasn’t the pibull who started it, and plus it didn’t even fight back”  

Dumb Friend of Person at the Park: “I am sure the Pitbull provoked it, those dogs will eat your face and lockjaw your ass off.”  

Person at the Park: “Really? Maybe I should become a dumb ass too and agree with that”

And that’s how it starts. I may have over exaggerated a bit, but you get the point I hope. People tend to believe what they hear, and the more people telling the lies, the more the lies become true. It’s the old telephone game, one person telling another person ends up being completely far from the truth at the end. 

But since I have never actually been to a dog park, and can’t really say if it’s a good thing or not, but I would rather not take the risk at this point until I am comfortable with the situation. I have actually taken my dog and the fosters that I have had in the past to the local park in summer and spring, when the Ice Rinks are empty. I just shut the fence door and let them run around, they love it, and I don’t have to worry about them getting loose or getting hurt in any way.   

I think I would prefer if there was a park that had someone who was paying attention to dogs, like a lifeguard at a pool would do. Someone who is trained and experienced in that environment. Of course then we would have to pay for it, but I would pay money to have a place like that, wouldn’t you?

Pics of Rocky’s Ear as it is today.

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Edit 2/23/2010:  Due to the swelling being really bad, i actually took Rocky into the Vet last night instead of the scheduled day weds. Should know how it goes by the end the day, I’ll post an update in the next few days.

 

This is what Rocky’s ear looks like before the Surgery that takes place on Weds this week. I feel so bad for him, you can just tell it is seriously bothering him. The way he walks, his head is tilted as in pain and he looks up to me with the help me eyes and there is nothing I can do about till weds.

I really hope the surgery goes well, I am not comfortable putting him under anesthesia, since I have no way of knowing if he is allergic to anything, but all I can do is hope for the best. I’ll update the situation after the surgery this well.  

You can see how bad it is swelled up in the pictures. It’s really bad now.

 

Ealrier Posts on this subject

My Dog’s Visit to the Vet.
Rocky’s Status
Rocky due for Surgery

 

 

 

Rocky due for Surgery

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Yep, my dog Rocky needs to have surgery on his ear. Next Weds night I will drop him off  and pick him up on the following day. Here’s the link to my previous post to the cause of ear hematoma.

The reason why I chose Surgery for him instead of draining his ear again is because it didn’t seem like it helped draining it and they recommended that i do the surgery instead of coming in every week to drain it 4-5 times and no guarantee it would heal. 

I will try to post pics of his ear before the surgery and after the surgery as well.