The Truth About Bouviers Des Flandres and Pit Bull Awareness Month

We've all seen the hype and push to sell pit bulls to just anyone this month with Pit Bull Week, Pit Bull Awareness Day, and Pit Bull Awareness Month.  And we’ve all seen at least one of the hundreds of articles entitled “The Truth about Pit Bulls” or “Pit Bull Myths” telling us that pit bulls have an undeserved bad reputation and make great pets for just about anyone and please go get one today.

Other breed clubs have the equivalent of "The Truth About Pit Bulls" information pages. But, while "Truth About Pit Bulls" pages are created to encourage just anyone to impulsively buy a pit bull by distorting history, making false claims and just plain lying, Truth pages written about other breeds serve to protect the breed from being abused in the hands of those same kinds of impulsive, low-information, naive potential owners.

Bouvier des Flanders

Ronald Reagan's Bouvier, Lucky

The grandma of Truth pieces is "Don't Buy a Bouvier" by Pam Green (1992), perhaps written after the Bouvier des Flanders breed jumped slightly in popularity after people saw Ronald Reagan with his Bouvier, Lucky. As the title indicates, it was written to warn off impulsive, uncommitted potential owners from buying Bouviers thus preventing Bouviers from being abused, neglected and prematurely killed. There are 9 Bouviers listed for adoption in North America on Petfinder. Though Bouviers are a large, dominant, protective breed that have been used for police work, Clifton's "Dog Attack Deaths and Maimings" report lists zero Bouviers killing or maiming a person in North America as of 2014.

The breed is strong, can be aggressive and potentially dangerous in the wrong hands. But the breed is rare and few dogs end up in shelters, so it presents virtually zero threat to public safety and Bouviers can live long and happy lives in the hands of committed and responsible owners. That is called breed stewardship.  Stewards and protectors of a breed do not want their dogs to become popular or to pawn their dogs off on just anyone by lying about the characteristics of the breed because that gets people injured or killed and hurts the dogs, too.

BAD DOG TALK

The gold star of breed stewardship and advocacy goes to the Jack Russell Terrier Club of America. Their Truth page pulls absolutely no punches. They push back hard against the increased public awareness and potential impulse buyers that followed Eddy's (Frasier TV show) and Wishbone's appearances on TV. They carefully explain how a dog actor gives a very misleading impression of the real Jack Russell Terrier's temperament.  They even made a logo with the slogan:  

Contrast that with this pit bull pushing craziness:

Here’s a sample of other breed clubs that have adapted or been inspired by “Don’t Buy a Bouvier”

Don’t Buy a Chinook

Don’t Buy an English Springer Spaniel

Don’t Buy a Saint Bernard
Don't Buy a Beauceron

Facts About Akitas

Top Ten Reasons Not to get a Labrador Retriever

10 Reasons You Do NOT Want a German Shepherd Dog

Is the Leonberger for You?

Should You Own a Golden?

Shiba Inu Temperament What's Good , What's Bad

Do I Really Want a Border Collie?

Contrast that with the pit bull pushers and the myths and lies they perpetuate to sell pit bulls to any and everyone with disasterous results when they should be screaming to the rafters for Mandatory Spay and Neuter and demand that pit bull ownership be regulated:

The truth about pit bulls: 6 myths dispelled

THE TRUTH ABOUT PIT BULLS - Victoria Stillwell

The Truth About Pit Bulls - Nat Geo Wild -  dead link

10 Reasons Why Pit Bulls Rule - Petfinder

6 Reasons Pit Bulls Make Great Pets

Pit Bulls' surprising past: Nanny Dogs

Pit Bulls are Noble, Loving, Loyal, Playful - Ed Boks - dead link

Pit Bulls Are Wonderful Family Pets - dead link

The Truth About Pit bulls - Pasado's Safe Haven  - dead link

We Were Wrong About Pit Bulls. Learn the Truth - Best Friends - dead link

The Truth About Pit Bulls - Chicago Pet News Examiner  - dead link

The Truth About Pit Bulls: A war hero, a movie star and the pet of two presidents - dead link

Update from a 2011 post

Scorched Earth, the Politics of Pit Bulls: A Facebook post that deserves to be seen.

Scorched Earth, the Politics of Pit Bulls: A Facebook post that deserves to be seen.: This comment turned up on Facebook this morning.  These are not my words but I urge you to read them to understand the fury pit bull owners turn on the victims of their bred-for-blood-sport dogs. Thank you to the author of this comment but I will not share her name in an effort to protect her from the vile rage of pit bull owners.

Pit Bull Crisis Prompts Support Groups to Declare October 24th National Pit Bull Victim Awareness Day

Pit bull victim groups launch national advocacy website NationalPitBullVictimAwarenessDay.org to raise awareness of the social and financial costs of pit bull attacks. The initiative, sponsored by Daxton's Friends for Canine Education and Awareness, seeks to call attention to the scope and severity of this urgent public safety issue. #NationalPitBullVictimAwarenessDay

 

 

The National Pit Bull Victim Awareness Day website lists more than 50 organizations and advocacy groups from across the continent whose purpose is to alert the public to the pit bull crisis. 

"wild spouting of dog statistics"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ6HvjJisMA

The above video is art imitating life. The video below is why

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OtqZo1bDmo

craven mailbag

The recent Wisconsin pole dancers for pit bulls fund raiser inspired this email from a reader:

Not everything reviled is misunderstood. Some things are stigmatized, feared, hated, for good reason, and should remain so, for the good of all. All thinking people realize stripping and fighting breeds, are not good things to be revered or encouraged.

The only people misunderstanding stripping are liberal jerks that think being sexually exploited is just everyday work, and have the nerve, and ignorance, to call it empowering. That's a lie, one that hides the abuse and dysfunction driving most strippers, along with a lack of better financial options, even the outright slavery that is part and parcel of the sex industry.

The only people misunderstanding pits are liberal jerks that have taken PC to a place that makes no sense at all. These people love an underdog to the point that they will take on the disgusting, and dangerous, as causes to celebrate, so long as the average person finds them repulsive. They can't be seen as one of the sheep! Blinded by their own false morality, they mistake solutions that are truly humane like BSL for evil plots to commit mass slaughter of innocent animals.

These type of pit pushers also include the rescue angels. Their need to feel special drives them, and owning a "pibble" fills that ego driven need for several main reasons. One reason is the ego boost that they get when they can look progressive to their peers (other such ignoramuses); adopting a vile creature with a bad reputation is a badge of honor amongst these fools.

Another reason is that if their pit hasn't (yet) maimed or killed, they can feel superior to others, which feels good and falsely elevates their self esteem. This is why they fully believe, and internalize the lie, that genetics mean nothing, and pits are safe and wonderful with the right owners. Their sweet fur baby is harmless, so they think, and it's because they are such great people, unlike those "un-enlightened trash" that have pits that attack.

You see a pattern here? I know I do. 

While this doesn't cover every person that parrots the line about the "true greatness of the poor misunderstood victim", it describes the reality I see everyday in my hyper liberal city.

You see, contrary to the crap many pit lovers spew, the majority know exactly what pits are, what they can do, why they are bred, and they revel in this. Whether it's the power they derive from intimidation and brutality, the sexual thrill (!) of owning and controlling a strong and virile beast, or simply the desire to profit big off of dog fighting/breeding, they know pits deserve their bad rap. They depend on it, brag about it!

Sure, these sociopaths will use the same lines about poor sweet nanny dogs when speaking to a non pit owner, but they have no illusions about their breed being misunderstood.

The same goes for the rest of the (all too often so called progressives and 3rd wave "feminists") that push approval of stripping (plus porn, prostitution, sexual deviants, etc). They aren't misunderstanding the nature of the sex industry. They just enjoy the enormous profits, and other benefits more than they care about the fallout and damage done.

The liberal lovers and defenders of pits and sexual exploitation give cover, and public legitimacy, to sociopaths and their actions. Their work making dangerous dogs, and sex "work", seem safe and fun is deplorable, harmful, even deadly, and utterly selfish. 

There is nothing progressive about this.



in case you missed it, pit nutter circus took a jab at the wisconsin freak show too. 

Support Breed Specific Legislation

www.banpitbulls.org

High Conflict People Part 2: Negative Advocates

High conflict people (HCPs), or people who fall within the spectrum of the cluster B personality disorders, have a life long pattern of blaming others. One of their preferred dysfunctional tools is emotional reasoning, assuming facts from feelings. Emotional facts are emotionally generated false information that are accepted as true and appear to require emergency corrective action. According to Bill Eddy, there are three types of emotional facts: 1) real facts that have been exaggerated, 2) real facts that have been taken out-of-context and 3) non-existent facts based on the worse fears of the HCP (high conflict person).

Eddy sees the pain of the cluster B personality disordered people as fear driven. He distills each of the four cluster B types down to a single, basic driving fear. Those suffering from anti-social personality disorder, the sociopaths, fear being dominated. The narcissists fear inferiority. The borderlines fear abandonment. And the histrionics fear being ignored.

Eddy approaches the cluster B personalities with a great deal of compassion, much, much more than I am typically able to muster. His compassion for their fear and pain is admirable. I love his books. They are concise, easy to read and he provides much needed attention to the histrionic variant, the type most authors and researchers ignore.

Here is another excerpt from one of my favorite books, High Conflict People in Legal Disputes. It completes the foundation and sets the stage for High Conflict People Part 3.

High-conflict personalities don’t get very far unless they persuade others to adopt their cognitive distortions and assist in their interpersonal battles. In substance-abuse treatment, we call these persons “enablers”. They enable the abuser to stay stuck in negative behavior, negative thinking and avoidance of responsibility. I use the term “negative advocate” for enablers in legal disputes, because the adversarial process relies so heavily on professional and non-professional advocates. Enablers–often inadvertently–advocate for the cognitive distortions and negative behavior of HCPs.

High-conflict disputes don’t occur without one or more negative advocates–at least I’ve never seen it happen. On their own, most HCPs lack credibility. They seek negative advocates to justify their misbehavior and misconceptions, and to assist them in blaming others for their life problems–to advocate for them.

Negative advocates are those family members, friends, mental health professionals and legal professionals who try to help but get it backwards–they adopt or agree with the HCP’s backward thinking. They become persuaded–especially by Cluster B persuasive blamers–to focus all their attention on other people’s alleged misbehavior. They help the HCP to avoid responsibility and hold others responsible for their own problems and behavior. They agree with and advocate for, the cognitive distortions of HCPs: their all-or-nothing thinking, emotional reasoning, personalizing events, exaggerating minor (or non-existent) events and minimizing their own major misbehaviors. Negative advocates help HCPs stay sick.

Negative advocates absorb the high-intensity emotions of the HCP and often enhance them to a higher level of urgency–they amplify their distorted thinking and join in generating emotional facts. They have adopted the HCP’s process of emotional reasoning. If family members, friends and professionals would become more skeptical and avoid becoming negative advocates, high-conflict disputes would significantly reduce the pressure on our legal system.

The HCP’s emotional drive persuades them there is a crisis, so the negative advocate picks up that sense of crisis and also becomes emotional and aggressive in defending the HCP. However, the negative advocate usually has more credibility, and therefore is more able to persuade others. It’s the domino theory of negative advocates. In some cases, negative advocates are able to persuade a lot of other people to become negative advocates.

Bill Eddy, High Conflict People in Legal Disputes, 2012

My initial plans consisted of just a part 2 but I realized it would be better if it was broken up into three parts. I will complete the trilogy with High Conflict People Part 3 soon. Estimated publish date: July 4th. In the meantime, I hope you will click on the above link and purchase one of my all time favorite books. It is money well-spent.


High Conflict People Part 1

High Conflict People Part 3