Petey Was a Pit Bull

shorthand for hate

2008-10-11T14:28:00.001-07:00

Last night a fat blond woman at a McCain rally told McCain that she doesn't trust Barrack Obama. Barrack Obama is a bad man. Barrack Obama is an ARAB. Did she mean, an Arab, someone from an Arabic country, or did she really mean Arab, shorthand for someone different than her who she's learned to be afraid of, to demonize, blame and hate?
Yesterday someone sent me an article about a horse whose leg was ripped off by a pit bull. Did they really mean pit bull, like my pit bull Riley, or did they just mean pit bull, shorthand for mean, vicious dog? Maybe the dog that attacked the horse was a pit bull, or, as is often the case, maybe it was similar to a pit, maybe it was convenient to call it a pit because we all know what that word means.

don't insult my dog!

2008-09-04T20:34:00.000-07:00

Last night Sarah Palin (sp?) said she is like a pit bull with lipstick. I beg your pardon. My pit bull is good-hearted, sweet-tempered and trustworthy. My dog is nothing like you, lady.

that will be one ticket to Orlanda

2008-05-10T20:26:00.000-07:00

Today I was talking to Julie the automated voice of Amtrak. I was sitting beside the window where my trusty dog, Riley, stands to keep an eye on the sidewalk. I found out that when Riley barks, it sounds like he says, "Orlando, Florida." And what is your destination, asked the machine named Julie, just as a black lab walked past. "Oh," said Julie. "Orlando, Florida."

Ohio City Attorney not an idiot

2008-04-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

Whitehall attorney says pit bull legislation unconstitutional

(by Dianne Garrett, Staff Writer - April 12, 2008)

Whitehall City Council members were barking at each other April 8 over a proposed ordinance to ban pit that the city attorney declared unconstitutional.
After reviewing the Ohio Attorney General's opinion on the issue, as well as the Ohio Supreme Court decisions, City Attorney Mike Shannon said that he believed the proposal to be unconstitutional because it does not provide for an appeals process.
"Whether or not a dog is a pit bull is a completely separate issue from whether or not a particular pit bull is vicious," Shannon said. "As such, I believe the ordinance you have sponsored is unconstitutional as it does not provide for an appeals board to hear appeals on whether dogs (other than pit bulls) are dangerous and/or vicious, or appeals on whether or not a particular dog is a pit bull."
....Spotting a pit bull can be difficult, Councilman Bob Bailey said. He was given a poster that had a photo of 20 dogs that looked like pit bulls, but only one was actually the breed.
Mayor John Wolfe ..... questioned if an attempt would be made later on to rid dogs breed by breed every time there is a complaint about a certain kind of dog. "We will go through this each time."

(thanks to Jody Preis for passing this along)

learning to be a pet

2008-03-30T19:04:00.001-07:00

My daughter says that everyone in the world has seen the news about some of the dogs rescued from Michael Vics dog fighting/dog torturing operation, but I want to put it here anyway. First the above photograph of one of the dogs and his current owner and also this link.

free and not neurotic in Mexico

2008-02-06T19:39:00.000-08:00

My home town has just passed an ordinance saying you can't tie your dog outside a public building. You can't ride your bike to the store with your dog-- my dog Riley's favorite thing to do- and leave him outside while you run in for a green pepper. For crying out loud. I was in Mexico last month, in a little town called La Manzanilla. Even though a local vet periodically rounds up the local dogs and spays/neuters them, there are dogs everywhere. I love it. They are free and not neurotic. A nice pitbull lived on the next block. I meant to take her picture and put it here, but I didn't, so here's Riley instead.

Riley and his little friend

2007-11-27T06:10:00.000-08:00

Like it or not, your dog is an ambassador

2007-11-12T11:16:00.001-08:00

I've been hearing about a young woman here in Corvallis who takes her dog, a young pit, to the dog park, off leash, even though the dog has attacked and bitten several of the dogs there. We can advocate all we want for the pits, but one dog owner like this and one untrained, aggressive dog wipes all that out. Pit bull owners, your dogs, like it or not, are ambassadors. They are showing people, by their behavior: this is what a pit bull is like. Don't let your dog reinforce unjust and inaccurate stereotypes. Fair or not, you do a disservice to the entire breed. You give ammunition to people like those in Denver who have outlawed pit bulls and have killed hundreds of family pets........
ps the painting at the top of this entry is a link. Click on it!

a letter to Air America's Ring of Fire

2007-09-08T12:32:00.000-07:00

Today on your show, John Morgan was talking about Bush and the fact that media pretends he has what they call "loyalty," when, in fact, if one of his guys is no longer useful or, even worse, disagrees with one of his whacky policies, Bush turns on him--- Morgan said "turns on him like a pit bull." Hey! Pit bulls do not typically turn on people. Pit bulls are loyal, people-loving and trustworthy. While I agree whole-heartedly with your assessment of Mr. Bush, I have to object to your characterization of pit bulls.

Like a pit bull

2007-09-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

Last week there was a retreat for the staff at the school where I work. I think a retreat should always include a pedicure, but it didn't. Ours was a bonding retreat. This is a pit bull blog, so I won't go into my feelings about activities designed to artificially create bonding in the workplace. One of the less irritating things we were instructed to do was to create a metaphor.

When I am teaching at my best, I am like (insert your metaphor here.)

(Which is, by the way, the very same activity a friend in Massachusetts had to do at one of her university-staff bonding retreats.)

At any rate, I said, "When I am teaching at my best, I am like a pit bull: eager, enthusiastic, fun-loving, good-natured and exuberant.

I think it's time to create new metaphors for pit bulls.

PETA-- punishing the breed, not the deed

2007-08-25T08:19:00.001-07:00

PETA’s Position on Pit Bull Bans
"PETA supports legislation that bans the breeding of pit bulls, just as we support any spay/neuter legislation as the most effective way to combat the tragic companion animal overpopulation problem. We also support pit bull bans, as long as they include a grandfather clause....."

Wouldn't such a ban, if it was successful, lead to the extinction of pit bulls? What is with PETA?

the only dog that ever bit me was a poodle

2007-08-24T20:50:00.000-07:00

According to news sources, two pit bulls here in the northwest entered a woman's home through her cat door and attacked her. Just the kind of story pit bull lovers hate to hear. I read one of the articles written about the attack, and then I wrote the journalist a letter. Here's the letter I wrote-----

Dear Mr. Haynes,

I read your article on the woman who was attacked by dogs. Are you sure the dogs are pit bulls? Lots of breeds look like pits, but aren't. Pit bulls as a breed, despite what people might think from news reports, are especially adverse to attacking people. (If they are pits, you might mention this in your report, for the sake of fairness and accuracy.)

thank you,
Alison Clement
pit buller owner and advocate

http://www.understand-a-bull.com/BSL/MistakenIdentity/WrongId.htm

Aisle of Dogs

2007-08-23T16:18:00.000-07:00

This is a poem by Chase Twichell [New Haven, 1950-] from her book The Ghost of Eden (Ontario Review Press, Princeton, 1995).

AISLE OF DOGS

In the first cage
a hunk of raw flesh.
No, it was alive, but skinned.

Or its back was skinned.
The knobs of the spine

poked through the bluish meat.

It was a pit bull, held by the shelter
for evidence until the case
could come to trial,

then they'd put him down. The dog,
not the human whose cruelty

lived on in the brindled body,
unmoving except for the enemy eyes.

Not for adoption, said the sign.

All the other cages held adoptable pets,
the manic yappers, sad matted mongrels,
the dumb slobbering abandoned ones,

the sick, the shaved, the scratching,
the wounded and terrified, the lost,

one to a cage, their water dishes
overturned, their shit tracked around,

on both sides of a long echoey
concrete aisle--clank of chain mesh gates,
the attendant hosing down the gutters

with his headphones on, half-dancing
to the song in his head.

I'd come for kittens. There were none.
So I stood in front of the pit bull's
quivering carcass, its longdrawn death,

its untouched food, its incurable hatred
of my species, until the man with the hose
touched my arm and steered me away,

shaking his head in a way that said
Don't look. Leave him alone.
I don't know why, either.

a family pet

2007-08-22T17:32:00.001-07:00

Portland Oregon's alternative newspaper, The Willamette Week, has an article in its August 1 edition, about the local animal shelter and its increased rate of dog euthanizations. The director, Mike Oswald, attributes the increase to the fact that 33% of the dogs entering the shelter are now "pit bull type" dogs. He goes on to say that most people come to the shelter looking for a "family pet, not something difficult to handle."
Pit bulls are not naturally aggressive and hard to handle. He does the dogs a disservice by implying that they are.