Pittie Post Day: Challenging ourselves

One day early in our life with Bella, within the first couple of weeks of getting her, Jan and I took her to a local trail where she could get some exercise and maybe meet some dogs in a safe, controlled way. Lots of dogs and their owners walk here and most have their dogs under voice control if not on a leash outright. But it's a wooded trail that winds and twists and you can't always see what's around the corner.

Part way into our walk, we came to a corner that had a big, bounding dog running around it. A big, bounding Pitbull. Off-leash. No collar. And no owners in sight. Heading straight towards us.

And we with our scared-y dog - presently straining at the end of the leash behind me and just a blink away from getting out of her collar to escape the big, bounding dog. And I admit it, we spooked.

Both Jan and I reacted immediately and strongly out of fear of this dog potentially hurting our pup. While I scurried to gather Bella up in my arms, Jan stood between us and the approaching dog, arms spread to appear as big as possible and yelled a warning to the dog to stop.

To our utter amazement and eternal gratitude, she did.

Finally, her owners came around the corner and introductions were made. She was a beautiful blue and white American Pit Bull Terrier a few years old. She had excellent dog greeting skills and I was truly embarrassed at our own little ruffian's bad manners when she snipped at the greeting. In true Pittie fashion, the beautiful stranger just snuffed and walked away not interested in playing with the snarky little pup any more.

You're probably wondering why I'm telling you this now.

Well, today is Corbin's, of "Oh Corbin" fame, third birthday and for his birthday gift, he has asked folks here in Blogville to say a little something about Pitbulls.

When I first heard about Corbin's birthday wish, I mulled over a bunch of different ways to approach the topic. I could write about the many bully breed dogs we met when we used to visit the Tufts Farm Field or at different dog-centered events we attend. I could recall how I used to jump at the chance to walk the bully breeds at my local shelter because they were always the sweetest, cuddliest creatures in the kennel. Or maybe I should write about the horrid and inhumane breed-specific legislation popping up all over the country? I could talk about how breed stereotypes are hurting beautiful dogs like Ed who sit waiting in shelters for someone to look beyond appearance and recognize them for the beautiful souls they are.

But when I thought about that one unexpected encounter we had in our history with Bella, I couldn't get out of my head how we reacted without thinking. How, even though we knew better, our feelings were still influenced by the non-stop media barrage that paints these dogs as dangerous and inherently vicious. Yes, we can try and excuse our feelings by saying the dog was off-leash, had no collar and no owners in sight. But let's be honest, would we really have reacted the same way had the approaching dog been a Golden Retriever?

And therein lies the problem.

If it's hard even as dog-lovers for Jan and I to let go of the fear being instilled in us by this insidious media campaign against Pitbulls, what can we expect of the average person or worse, those who are afraid of or dislike all dogs to begin with? And how do we reach those folks to overcome the media myth?

Campaigns like this one Corbin is running and the many Facebook groups and blogs that have formed to present a positive pit bull image are a great start. Even better are the meet-up groups like the Chicago-based SociaBulls and Vancouver's HugABull that get the dogs out in front of people and give them a chance to interact with the community. We need to do anything and everything we can to get these beautiful dogs, real animals, real family members, out in front of people so they can interact with them and see for themselves they are not the monsters the media is trying to make them out to be.

Because once you've actually put a face to the name, it becomes harder to devalue the individual soul you're talking about 'eliminating'. And it becomes easier to discount what the media is selling. And when you know these dogs, when you look into their eyes, it becomes impossible to imagine a world without them.

Happy birthday, Corbin!
We truly hope one day you and all your brethren will be allowed to live in peace again.