Tag: breeders

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Face to Face with PIT BULLS: The Real Deal

I saw this recently and I heard subsequently that it had been cited in a radio program:

Ten Commandments of Pit Bull Ownership

  1. Thou shalt NEVER trust thy Pit Bull not to fight
  2. Thou shalt contain thy Pit Bull securely when not supervised by an adult
  3. Thou shalt NEVER leave thy adult Pit Bull alone and unsupervised with another dog
  4. Thou SHALT attend obedience classes most faithfully with thy Pit Bull
  5. Thou SHALT keep thy Pit Bull socialized with ALL KINDS of people
  6. Thy Pit Bull wilt NEVER be allowed off-leash in a public place
  7. Thy Pit Bull wilt NEVER be allowed to roam free in thy neighborhood, EVER!
  8. Thou SHALT take thy well trained Pit Bull out in public and show him/her off – on leash for good breed PR!
  9. Thy Pit Bull shalt go forth into the world as an ambassador of the pit bull breed
  10. THOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY WRONG DONE BY THY DOGS!

I thought I would use these ‘commandments’ as a framework for an analysis of the breed from a real-world perspective rather than a sensationalist one, since a list like the one above reinforces all the preconceptions about the breed and causes people to fear them. Continue reading “Face to Face with PIT BULLS: The Real Deal”

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THE GRAVE OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER

(People who work in animal rescue and welfare speak of the ‘war’ – it is a war against incredible odds with scarce resources and a never-ending time-frame. I’m not sure we’re winning it. – animalman)

Today I put down a dog. I don’t know if she had an owner and I don’t know if she had a name.

She was just an old dog, probably not nearly as old as she looked, who had spent her whole sad life in a bad place. She was very thin and had bad mange of most of her body, and ticks and fleas and worms. Her hindquarter had collapsed, partly from malnutrition and partly from bad arthritis from old untreated injuries. Her ears had been cut short and were eaten away by flies. Her teeth were stumps, Continue reading “THE GRAVE OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER”

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The Breeder and the Damage Done

Today, while you work, have tea, conversations with friends, lunch, make arrangements for your weekend, and do all the things that enable you to enjoy life, 822 domestic animals will be ‘put down’ in shelters around the country. And that is a conservative estimate. There will probably be a lot more.

We say ‘put down’ when we refer to animals. We do not use the term ‘murder’ because they are ‘only animals’. In today’s society, one ‘puts down’ creatures of a ‘lower order’, where they ‘belong’ – we use euphemisms as shields, lest we should be ashamed…

And we should be ashamed. We should be ashamed because the measures that could have prevented this have been available for some time, because the ignorance that prevails over this scenario is inexcusable, and because the majority feed the problem and sustain it Continue reading “The Breeder and the Damage Done”