Sunday, January 8, 2012

Saving Man's Best Friend

How Dangerous Breed Advocates are Redefining Our Relationships with Dogs and Why We Should Stop Them



Barney was the runt of a litter born to the neighbor's mutt. We conned our mom into keeping him, when we brought him home one day "just to show her." He never left. We think he was a Border Collie-Sheltie-Golden Retreiver-Cocker Spaniel...oh, hell, we had no idea what he was.

By Branwyne Finch
A guest writer for the DogsBite.org Blog.

Instead of the age-old common sense method of trying to match families with dogs whose behaviors would be a good fit with their lifestyle, rescues and shelters began trying to "sell" the public on pit bulls. As rescuing a dog became increasingly popular and the politically correct way to acquire a family pet, the rescue community had to up the anti; it wasn't enough for a family to adopt a popular dog breed who would find a home anyway. You could demonstrate your moral superiority by adopting an "unwanted" pit bull that would surely otherwise face euthanization if you didn't! In fact, adopting a pit bull with behavioral problems that needed "rehabilitation" elevated you to sainthood! You could join one of hundreds of online communities where your ego would be stroked by strangers who fawned over you with exclamations of "Bless you for helping a Pittie!" For the young, the bored and the gullible, the instant status amongst other pit bull owners became an almost irresistible draw.

click to read the entire blog post

6 comments:

DubV said...

Modest proposal...

Would it be difficult to make the collection of frankenmauler round-up an icon? That way people new to the site can get a drink with a firehose more readily.

scurrilous amateur blogger said...

yeah dubv, click on that frankenstein/pit bull line drawing on the right side. you know, the image that is associated with ledy vankavage. all of the frankenmauler roundups were collected by colleen and put in a single blog post. that frankenstein/pit bull drawing links to it.

DubV said...

Thanks Dawn. I remember seeing them all together before, but didn't know that was the link to it. It will come in handy if I want to direct someone to information on what pit bulls do to our other animal companions.

Anonymous said...

now that ive heard them and seen what they do i will never patronize or support in any way the shelters that promote dogs bred for violence. i would sooner acquire my pets from the lowliest of back-yard breeders than go anywhere near these misguided hypocrites.

Anonymous said...

Now the moral supremicists are adopting out game bred fighting dogs into neighborhoods dooming every dog in the neighborhood!

It makes them feel good....

DubV said...

Oh now Vintage, I'm sure they all mouth the line of "you have to be careful with this dog and never let it out. And it might not like other dogs. Oh, and be sure to take it to training, watch Cesar Millan, do alpha rolls, and drink more Ovaltine!"