How YOU Can Help

Pit Bull Informational Pages
by Diane Jessup 

PIT BULLS NEED OUR HELP - NOT OUR HATE
Don't support PETA and other organizations which seek to harm our dogs

By Dr. Max Rust, D.V.M., Tulsa, OK

I should warn you, I'm not James Herriott. My dog's story is not of the warm fuzzy genre, but is illustrative of a most pervasive problem....one which too few of you are aware.

It is often said that veterinarians must have an inordinate love for animals, but they also are often called on to deal with the very harshest realities of human and animal relations. If my dog tale lacks the cloying sanguinity of "All Creatures Great and Small", hopefully it is not totally devoid of optimism.

A year ago in June, on a hot Sunday afternoon as I lounged in torpid repose, Channel 2 News was airing a story about dog carcasses found in the back yard of a Tulsa residence. Two of the dogs were still alive, so I knew I would be involved in the case.

"Maggots was workin' on three of 'em and the fourth one's only been dead about two days." The sheriff's lieutenant continued in an impassive voice, "it's been alleged that they were fightin' pit-bull dogs in the garage, and when one would get killed, they'd just drag it out in the yard and let it deteriorate."

Feeling old, tired, and professionally burned out, I wondered why had I volunteered for the grim task of animal cruelty exams and necropsies. I guess, as depressing as it was, it seemed like important work. Maybe I just wanted something besides myself to feel sorry for. If that was the case, I was about to get my wish, IN SPADES.

The following morning after doing the spay and neuter surgeries and rabies observations, I headed for the pens housing the two dogs from the news story. (It's hard enough for me just to walk through the rows of dog runs at the shelter, knowing that most of the animals will have to be killed....sometimes I get the urge to open all the gates and set them free, but that would not solve their problem.) They suffer from that "most terrible disease, " in the words of Mother Teresa, "of being unwanted." It's sad to say, but as outcasts, they are much better off in the shelter than anywhere else.

When I got to the first dog's run, it looked empty. I'm used to seeing dogs with sad faces begging for a crumb of attention or warily cringing against the distal parapets. There was nothing so animate as either in this run. When I first saw him, he was curled up so tightly, he could have been mistaken for a water dish.

As he tried to stand up, I could see the pitiful remains of a large pit-bull dog. Bones jutted out everywhere. He looked like a skeleton with hair, and what hair he had was in sparse, dirty little tufts between numerous fight wounds, scars, and mange. His ears had been clumsily chopped off and the unhealed edges made him look like a macabre Mr. Potato Head.

I recoiled in horror at the sudden thought of what this poor, wretched dog had endured. What sort of dissolute soul could do this to a helpless old dog?

After staring at him for what seemed an interminable period, I realized that I had five more animals for cruelty exams (each with another story), so I had to move on Driving back to my clinic, I thought how depraved it was to treat animals this way.......was it sadism, apathy, or stupidity? None seemed in short supply. I kept seeing the pit-bull's face, a swarthy apotheosis of the downtrodden. There are so many like him, I felt powerless as I pondered the enormity of the problem.

Animal cruelty is an epidemic that with only the most egregious exceptions escapes the public's notice. This poor dog had been beaten, starved, mutilated, forced to fight for his life, and, worst of all, socially isolated.

Dogs are very social animals....more so, even, than humans. How can humans be so inhumane? How can humane people let such things happen? I resolved to rescue him; even though it was a scratch on an obdurate surface, a drop in a very large bucket.

I couldn't just leave him there to be euthanized. That's the only way pit-bulls are allowed to leave the shelter.....dead. I wanted him to experience at least one good day on earth. If possible, maybe I could even show him what it's like to be loved and wanted.

It would take some string-pulling from the D.A.'s office before I could get him released from the shelter......after all, he was a pit-bull, the paradigm of canine incorrigibility. (That is what media mavens would have you believe.) The truth is, pit-bulls are the oldest registered American breed and have long been favored for their courage, (fanciers call it "gameness") loyalty, and intelligence.

Unfortunately, their fighting reputation has made them very popular with a lot of unsavory characters who have ushered in a spate of backyard-bred, people-aggressive curs. Real pit-bulls are selected to be so people-friendly, they don't even make good watch dogs. But the newspapers are sold by grinding angsts, not accentuating positives. Consequently, people who wouldn't know a pit-bull sitting at their feet, still consider them to be the snarling menace of their worst nightmare. So torturing and killing them is, I suppose, more acceptable, or at least easier to ignore.

I'm NOT a pit-bull fancier. In fact, I'm more of a cat person, but let us remember, as "Uncle Mattie" says, "There are no bad breeds, just bad breeding." We transferred the pit-bull to my clinic and started treating his multitude of problems. I had no idea what kind of dog he would be personality-wise, with all of the abuse and privation he had suffered.

His stone face was inscrutable...blank except for a sadness in his sunken eyes. He was easy to work on so with considerable effort from all concerned, along with lots of treats and loving attention added to the antibiotics, vitamins, and medicated baths, the 30-pound skeletal specimen was morphed into a solid 75-pound dog.

After a couple of months, a shiny coat hid most of his scars, and the glum look on his face had been replaced by an infectious grin that, adorned by his chopped-off ears, was reminiscent of a happy face drawn on a Pompeian ampulla.

Meanwhile, my jaded karma had been ameliorated by his astonishing progress, not to mention his buoyant, stiff-upper-lip charm. Somehow he had managed to come through unimaginable hardship, not only clinging to life, and maintaining a positive attitude, which was to me, an inspiration. We named him, "Pete."

Pete and I started going on daily walks, short at first because he didn't have much stamina. Soon we were doing three miles or more, and as we ambled our way through the bosky recesses of Boman Acres, we were getting to know each other pretty well. It wasn't long before I was feeling better than I had in years!

Dog walking is very good exercise for man as well as dog. Pete loves and is loved by all of the neighborhood children, and for the most part has even become a gentleman around cats and other dogs.

Transformed into a doting pet parent, I beam with pride at any compliment directed at my charge. With a cake and party hat, we celebrated Pete's unofficial birthday in July.

I think it's safe to say that Pete has helped me at least as much as I have him. When asked what breed he is, I've been known to answer, with a slightly cryptic grin, "He's my 'Healer.'"

So it was that Pete and I came to heal each other and in the process, became bonded in lifelong friendship. His case was not only a watershed to me, but a source of encouragement to the cruelty investigating team.

Pete's previous owner is now serving six counts of 5 years each. Judge Turnbull simply termed the case "unbelievable." I wish that I could agree with that assessment; but, although the brutality of Pete's former life is now only a distant memory, many other cases continue to pass through the shelter with oppressive regularity. It is all too believable for those of us that grapple with the gruesome, and often overwhelming problem of cruelty to man's best friend.

If ever you find yourself in need of a cure for ennui, or maybe just a dose of reality, I highly recommend a trip to the city animal shelter, where you will see that taking any kind of significant bite out of animal cruelty remains a formidable, if not impossible, undertaking.

Having learned from my friend Pete, I, for one, have no intention of giving up.

An interesting and thoughtful article concerning the "owner" / "guardian" discussion.

Guarding the Guard Dogs? By Jon Katz

Last month, In Defense of Animals, a California-based animal rights organization, sent me some materials about its "Guardian Campaign." A polite letter complimented me on my most recent book, then requested that I use the term "guardian" rather than "owner" in future writings about dogs. The benefits of relating to animals as guardians rather than as owners would be "far reaching," wrote IDA president Dr. Elliot Katz (who's no relation). Changing how we speak would help change how we act. In a world where dogs are protected rather than owned, Katz argued, it would be easier to crack down on animal abuse, end the puppy-mill trade, and stop the killing of animals at shelters.

As a dog lover, owner of a rescue dog, and member of two rescue groups, I'm not convinced there will be concrete benefits from this metaphoric, even Orwellian revolution. How exactly will these semantic changes improve the lot of animals? Why can't we shut down puppy mills, end some cruel animal research, save the lives of dogs and cats in shelters, prosecute animal abuse, and still call ourselves "owners"?

IDA's letter proudly pointed out that San Francisco; West Hollywood; Berkeley, Calif.; Boulder, Colo.; Amherst, Mass., and the state of Rhode Island have already enacted ordinances changing owners into guardians. (Some of those jurisdictions have also embraced the animal-rights movement's other language crusade, changing "pets" into "companion animals.") Although IDA cited these cities and state as evidence that the notion of "guardian" is spreading, to me it suggests the opposite: Its successes are confined to left-wing pockets. I'll be impressed when Kansas City takes up the idea.

Social movements are only as effective as their ability to win popular support. I'm currently living in rural upstate New York, and I showed the IDA packet to Sandra, a sheep farmer who lives down the road with her female partner. She was shocked. "I love my Rottweiler," Sandra told me. "But I'd love to marry my partner and I can't. I have to say I'm a bit uncomfortable with dogs having more rights than I do. Me first." Sandra had just filed legal papers to have her partner declared her legal guardian in the event of serious illness. She said she was not about to do the same for her dog. I reminded Sandra that animal rights don't really come at the expense of human rights: there's no reason both species can't have some protection. But her reservations are important.

Easing animal suffering is inarguably worthwhile; turning animals into a kind of human is another matter. And such a transformation seems the goal of some animal activists. My IDA packet contained a testimonial from a Michael Mountain of the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. "People of other genders, races and even age groups were once treated as property in this country," Mountain wrote. "Now, it is time for 'people' of other species to be accorded the same simple dignity of being recognized, not as someone else's property but as beings in their own right." Mountain couldn't have made the point more dramatically*or offensively. I don't care to jump in with a moral value system that equates my beloved border collies with human slaves. Nothing about this comparison helps animals. It distorts their true natures and diminishes ours. The guardian campaign is a vivid example of the growing tendency to blur the boundaries between us and our pets. Many Americans have already stopped seeing their dogs and cats as animals. They're family members, emotional support systems, metaphors for issues from our own pasts, aids for healing and growth, children with fur.

Seeing them the way we see ourselves - as having human thoughts and needs, human rights - is another kind of abuse and exploitation. No human would want to spend five minutes in a kennel, yet good kennels, much maligned by deeply attached pet owners, are often the safest and best places to leave dogs when we leave home. Seeing dogs as piteous, deprived, abused, and needy can lead us to treat them unwisely. Vets cite overfeeding and the resultant epidemic obesity as a major killer of dogs and cats in America. Yet I can't count how many times I've heard somebody say, "I feed him because I just can't bear to starve him." Or "I just can't resist when he begs for food. He's so cute." Any vet or animal nutritionist would tell these people that they're doing as much harm to their cute little beggars by overfeeding them as they would by kicking them.

People who see their dogs as humanlike often struggle to train them properly, especially if they believe they were abused or mistreated. Owners sometimes think their dogs have already suffered so much that they couldn't possibly inflict any more criticism. Yet it's that very firm, effective training that would make those dogs happier and more secure. And what about the growing number of owners who find neutering cruel or unbearable, because they would find it so? Refusing to neuter may put their own pet or someone else's in danger*causing aggression, running away, and unwanted litters. Or the pet owners who make their dogs hyper by believing they need to "play" continuously, like overprogrammed boomer children? They drag them to unruly play groups, toss Frisbees and balls night and day, haul them to an endless round of organized activities*but fail to teach them how to be calm. The humanlike view of dogs affects the decision about when to euthanize a sick or elderly pet. I recently attended two veterinary conventions where scores of vets told me their biggest recent problem is people who see their pets as so human that they simply cannot end their lives or suffering, no matter the cost or the pain.

There is no evidence that dogs have the kind of complex emotional lives and value systems that we do. It's one reason why we love them so much, in fact. They are neither "good" nor "bad." They don't hold grudges, act in petty ways, or seek revenge. [Note from Diane, maybe his border collies don't - but I've seen plenty of intelligent dogs which hold grudges]. They read our moods, but not our minds. If they did, we'd start loving them as we love other humans,which could mean a lot less than we love them now. Dogs are not "people" of another species. They are another species.

To train and care for them properly, to show them how to live in our complex world, requires first and foremost that we understand that. I owe my dogs much, more than I can say, but they are not my "companions", as if we voluntarily chose to hang out together but none of us has authority over the others. I bought and/or acquired them. I own them. I am profoundly responsible for their care and well being. Guardianship, a word always applied to human beings, implies equality, the highest and perhaps most noble of all goals in this democratic nation. Ownership implies responsibility. Americans who own dogs need to be more responsible for them, literally and emotionally, not more equal to them. The drama of the modern dog is that he is segregated from society, from work, children, public places, and then blamed for not knowing how to live in our world. The things he wants to do, have sex, roll in gross stuff, roam freely, squabble with other dogs, chew shoes, pee on every other tree, are either illegal or frowned upon. His challenge isn't to become a free and equal person in the best traditions of our society but to learn how to live in the alien world of people. Guardianship suggests dogs have a right to live their own lives as they wish. This is impossible in our dog-unfriendly world. Ownership implies a human duty to help the dog adjust to this difficult, inhospitable place.

"Dog owner" is a proud title. It suits me fine.