Pit bulls have an undeserved reputation as violent, says a defender of the breed, who wants owners under more scrutiny.
Appearances proved deceiving.
"She was just a lover," said Dottie's mom, Dorothy Michel, who lives in Jordan. "My husband started calling her Underfoot because that's where she always was -- underfoot."
Spend some time with Dottie, 37, and her pit bull, Bailey, now 3, and the image of the homicidal canine seems the stuff of yesterday's headlines. With the delicacy of a kiss, Bailey takes one Cheeto after another from the hand of 2-year-old Jordan, who's visiting. The family kitten sleeps on Bailey's tummy. "She's my baby girl," said Dottie, who lives in Carver.
But it was one of those headlines that prompted Dottie to e-mail the newspaper as "a proud pitbull owner." She wrote that she is one of many savvy owners who are being tarnished by those less responsible whenever a tragedy involves the breed. Earlier this summer, a pit bull chained to a pole in a Minneapolis family's basement killed their 7-year-old son. The dog had previously attacked the boy and two adults, according to Hennepin County officials.
"I wish someone would do a story about the good, loving pits!" she wrote. OK then, Dottie, start us off:
"I feel for the family, but with a dog tied in the basement, well, you know, yeah," she said, as if such an outcome were too obvious for words. "If Bailey were to bite somebody, like how that little boy got attacked, I'd be the first one to put her down."
Granted, that's easy to say when your dog hasn't bitten anyone -- which, happily, is most dog owners' experience. There are more than 68 million pet dogs and 301 million people in the United States. Dogs of all breeds bite more than 4.7 million people nationwide each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Of those, about 360,000 need emergency room treatment; about half of those are children.
Both Michels are somewhere in those statistics. "I got bit by a Yorkshire terrier," Dorothy said. Added Dottie: "I got bit by a wiener dog."
They laughed at the irony of these little yappers taking their toll in the face of calls to ban the pit bull breed. Then, more seriously, they said it's better to consider banning certain owners.
"Why don't they check these people out more, like they do for guns, when they want to buy a pit bull?" Dorothy asked. Dottie said she spent hours from puppyhood onward socializing Bailey, bringing her everywhere to make her at ease around people. "She was with me always," she said. As she spoke, Jordan, the toddler, dropped the metal tube of a broken wind chime on the kitchen floor. Clang! Bailey, lounging under the table, never flinched.
Still, Dottie knows that she's one irresponsible dog owner away from trouble. She's alert to other dogs coming near, whether on the sidewalk or at her son's ballgames. Pit bulls were bred to fight other dogs, she said, so their aggressiveness is more directed to those with four legs than with two.
Still, the question remains: Why -- given all the breeds of dogs -- would you choose one that comes with so much baggage? Well, she didn't, actually. Bailey was a gift from a former husband who raised pit bulls. Now, though, she wouldn't have it any other way. "I love her stocky build, I love her stocky head, I love her muscles, I love her butt," Dottie said. "Yes, they are more aggressive. Yes, they have those muscles. Yes, they have that jaw. If I saw her come charging at me, I'd be afraid of her."
But that, ahem, is the point. When a stranger comes to the door, Bailey growls. Some neighbors have called the police, frightened off the sidewalk when Bailey barks. Yet on one recent afternoon, two teenage girls strolled the perimeter of the corner lot, provoking no reaction.
Dottie, who works at a technology company in Chaska and part-time at a kennel, also has two parakeet pairs, two cats, another puppy and a "teenage" dog that's half-pit, a quarter-lab and a quarter-St. Bernard that she took in from a co-worker overwhelmed by its energy. She's trying to find it a good home. Would that other overwhelmed pit owners knew when to call it quits, she said.
And don't even get her started on Michael Vick, the Atlanta Falcons quarterback who pleaded guilty to being involved with illegal dog-fighting. Or on Whoopi Goldberg, who tried to defend Vick as being from the Deep South, where dog fighting is more common.
"She said he was 'cultured' that way," Dottie said. "Well, that's just what I'm saying: You can 'culture' those dogs that way, too. But if a dog is properly treated and socialized, they are very loyal and kind dogs."
Kim Ode • 612-673-7185
Kim Ode • kimode@startribune.com
In June, a four-month-old bruised and injured pit bull puppy was found in a trash can. Now, the puppy has a new home.
When veterinarians first saw "Oscar," he had wounds all over his body, blood in his eye, and a broken leg. They believed the puppy may have been used as bait for dog-fighting.
Today, Oscar has a touch of a limp when he walks, but the trouble almost disappears as he races around on grass.
"They say he may have a limp, but I don't care. He deserves the best home he can have," said Jaime Blair, Oscar's new owner. "Actually, I'm kind of a 'turn-around' case. When I was a child, I had a beagle killed by a pack of pit bulls, and it wasn't the dog. It was the owners."
Blair, along with her fiancé, Chris Taylor, has followed Oscar's story since June, when Portsmouth Animal Control officers pulled his bruised body out of a garbage can.
"I was so mad," said Blair. "I think people that can do that kind of cruelty to something so innocent; it's just a different kind of evil."
At Oscar's new home, he gets two big sisters, including "Shea," a five-year-old pit bull.
"It's gonna be a crowded house," said Taylor. "Crowded bed, too. The dogs we have no, they sleep with us on the bed."
The puppy who was once thrown out like the trash is the new man of his house, king of the heap.
"He's gonna be spoiled," said Taylor. "Chew bones every night. You know, good dog food and everything."
"We don't have kids," added Blair. "We just have dogs, so I expect him to have a really good life."
Tuesday, Oscar went home with his new family to Chesapeake so that good life could begin.
Oh, she will spit out the occasional "knuckleheads" when speaking of her neighbors, but she says she has too much to do over the next month and a half to waste time hating them.
There are close to 50 dogs - mostly pit bulls - running around her house and its kennels. They'll need new homes before Oct. 31 - the court-ordered deadline for her and the animals to leave her Teller County residence.
A lot of people know of the 50-year-old Phillips. For the last four years, she has run Mariah's Promise, a mostly pit bull sanctuary that has saved hundreds of dogs that otherwise would have been euthanized because of bans on the breed in Denver and other municipalities.
Last year alone, Mariah's Promise took in 228 dogs, and found homes for 206 of them. She gained local and national prominence for her work.
And now, in the end, it was precisely that notoriety that she believes proved to be the shelter's undoing.
She traces it back to a glowing, Sept. 17, 2005 article in the Colorado Springs Gazette.
"We had been here since Labor Day 2003, and we did not have a single barking-dog complaint against us. After the Gazette article came out, I think all I ever did was let the animal control people in the front door."
From September 2005 until now, Phillips was handed 23 such complaints, eight of them sworn out by one neighbor alone.
"It wasn't like we were running a covert operation for two years," she said. "We weren't a secret, but the complaints came anyway."
The arrival of the fourth citation meant a court hearing. And Toni and her husband, Mike, would be in court over much of last year, making deals, promising to build soundproof kennels, and to reduce the number of dogs on the property to 50.
Money to build the kennels evaporated when title to the property unexpectedly showed that the buyer of their back 40 acres somehow had title rights to the land that ran through their house.
In the end, Toni Phillips agreed to vacate the property with the dogs, after paying some $800 in fines. Mike, under the agreement, can stay.
Asked why she would agree to such a deal, Toni Phillips thinks a long time.
"I don't know," she finally says. "I was there with my attorney, but I was a little bit stunned. There was talk that I could go to jail for the citations and, well, I'm not big on going to jail.
"I should have said, 'Hell no, you're not kicking me and my dogs out of my home.' I just didn't know what else to do."
She has reached an agreement with a nearby kennel to house 24 of the dogs. It will cost about $1,800 a month to do it, an expense Toni Phillips hopes will be covered by donations to the sanctuary and a grant she believes she will receive.
How long she will be able to afford such a payment, she simply says, "I don't know."
Nor does she have a current plan for the remaining 20 or so other dogs.
"If I can get them all adopted, that would be a perfect world," she says.
A Texas shelter has indicated it will take the non-pit bulls. Other shelters outside of Denver that do not kill have also made promises, she said.
Where she and Mike will end up, she also doesn't know. "I guess it's off to the great unknown," she says with a laugh.
What it really means is no laughing matter. The 200-plus mostly pit bull dogs that Toni Phillips annually saved from the euthanasia needle will likely die now. Unsuspecting owners will move to Denver from out of state, as they always have, buy a home or sign a lease, learn of the law and have nowhere to put the family pet.
That has been Toni Phillips' calling the last four years. And now, a good, completely worthwhile and humane service has been lost.
"People just didn't like the fact that pit bulls were here," said Toni Phillips, who has saved 177 pit bulls scheduled to die in Denver.
"Some have confided that they don't want me to stop. They just don't want me doing it here."
As for what the future might hold, she says she searches everyday for a kennel close to Mike's sheet-metal business in Woodland Park, far away from homeowners, where she can reopen Mariah's Promise. So far, there has been nothing.
"You know," she says, "I tried very hard to keep the dogs from barking. It is what dogs will do. But it wasn't like they were doing it all night.
"This is just terrible," Toni Phillips says. "No, this is dumb."
Cookie is a dog that has spent most of his life in the limelight.
In his early years, the pit bull was a champion fighting dog whose exploits were publicized in a national dog fighting magazine. For the last seven years he's been a pampered pet and a poster dog who has made dozens of public appearances that have raised thousands of dollars for abandoned, abused and neglected animals.
Cookie was the guest of honor yesterday at a party at the Animal Friends shelter in Ohio Township. About 50 people and a dozen pit bulls attended to celebrate Cookie's accomplishments and to raise public awareness that pit bulls -- and other "bully" breeds including American Staffordshire terriers and Staffordshire bull terriers -- can be loyal and loving pets.
"Cookie is probably the most famous dog in Allegheny County," said Kathy Hecker, one of the shelter's humane agents.
Ms. Hecker is probably not exaggerating, for Cookie's picture is sent out each year to the more than 100,000 dog owners who buy state dog licenses, by mail, from Allegheny County Treasurer John Weinstein.
Cookie's picture is always on the front of the pamphlet that asks dog owners to contribute to the Allegheny Abused Animal Relief Fund started in 2001 by Mr. Weinstein and county District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. More than $500,000 has been raised for the fund that most dog lovers know as AAARF! The funds, earmarked to help abused animals, are administered through a board that includes representatives of Animal Friends, Western Pennsylvania Humane Society and the Animal Rescue League of Western Pennsylvania.
When Ms. Hecker rescued Cookie seven years ago, the dog then known as "Crook" was chained outside and all of the ribs on his cinnamon-colored, battle-scarred body were clearly visible. Pictures of him weighing less than 30 pounds were featured in the early editions of AAARF! pamphlets. Animal Friends paid fairly hefty veterinarian bills to nurse him back to health and to get his weight up to 64 pounds.
"Cookie was a good and sweet dog from the first day we got him," Ms. Hecker said. "He never exhibited any aggression toward people or other dogs."
But who would want to adopt a pit bull that had fought successfully in professional circles?
Karen Cirrincione agreed to take Cookie into her McCandless home, and then she agreed to accompany him to dozens of public appearances per year to promote AAARF!
Cookie, who is thought to be about 14-years-old, has slowed down a bit with age. Though there was some talk of having a retirement party for Cookie, Ms. Cirrincione says he still enjoys getting out to meet and greet the public, so appearances will continue, though perhaps with less frequency.
Cookie's party at Animal Friends was one of many "love-a-bull" events planned at the Animal Friends shelter in September and October. Events include a Bully Adoption Day on Oct. 13 and an informational seminar on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.
Pit bulls often make up one-third to one-half of the dogs in shelters across the country. Because of that, Animal Friends has a Project Pit Bull that provides free spay or neuter surgery for all pit bulls.
For more information, call Animal Friends at 412-847-7002 or go to its Web site at www.animal-friends.org.
http://www.animal-friends.org/site/press.jsp#bully
September 6, 2007
Animal Friends Educates and Celebrates With Bully Breed Month Activities
With so many horrific stories about dog fighting in recent news, more questions—and misunderstandings—are circulating about pit bulls than ever before. This September, Animal Friends is proud to host renowned experts and other events for "Bully Breed Month," full of fun and informative activities to celebrate pit bull companions and the families who love them.
Animal Friends' Bully Breed Month activities kick off on Saturday, September 15 with "Cookie's Party" from 1:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Animal Friends will honor Cookie, a pit bull who was rescued from a life in dog fighting circles and went on to become the official "spokesdog" for the Allegheny Abused Animal Relief Fund (AAARF).
John Weinstein, Allegheny County Treasurer and Animal Friends Board Member, has attended many events with Cookie as part of his service as Treasurer on the Board of Directors for AAARF. John Weinstein states, "Cookie is a great ambassador for abused and neglected animals. Through his gentle demeanor and loving spirit, Cookie has helped so many members of our community understand that pit bulls—and all companion animals—deserve our help and compassion."
David Swisher, Executive Director for Animal Friends, explains, "By holding a party to honor Cookie, Animal Friends aims to cast a light on the other side of the pit bull equation: the rescued and adopted dogs who offer unconditional love and the families who make a loving, responsible commitment to them. We're proud to hold a month of special opportunities to celebrate these pets and people, and dispel the bad information that is all too prevalent about these wonderful dogs."
Come to Animal Friends for Cookie's Party on September 15 for an informative presentation about bully breeds, games for bullies and their people, raffles, and demonstrations about the proper ways to care for and exercise beloved pit bull companions. Get your picture taken with Cookie himself! This fun, family-friendly event is open to anyone who would like to learn more about pit bulls or connect with other pit bull adopters or advocates. Owned bully breeds are welcome to attend with their owners as long as they are kept on leash, current on vaccinations, spayed or neutered, and non-aggressive towards dogs or people. A requested donation of $6 per person is appreciated. Please RSVP by calling 412.847.7072.
In addition, on Wednesday, September 19 at 7:30 p.m., Animal Friends welcomes Paul Miller, nationally renowned animal welfare expert and Executive Director for the Humane Society of Washington County in Hagerstown, MD for "Pit Bulls: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly," a discussion about pit bulls and how they have been the victim of all too many crimes misunderstandings. Tuition is $10. A special lecture titled "Investigative Techniques for Dog Fighting" will be held on September 20 from 10:00 am – noon for members of law enforcement and animal welfare professionals. Call 412.847.7035 for details or to register for either session.
And, if you're prepared to offer a loving home to a "bully breed," come to Animal Friends on Saturday, October 13 for "Bully Adoption Day." Animal Friends' adoption counselors will be on hand to introduce you to bullies who need homes, and our behavior team will be available to answer all your questions and get you and your new companion off to a great start.
Sept. 17, 2007 issue - Some people love poodles. Others go crazy for cocker spaniels. When it comes to my canine breed of choice, I tend to prefer a rarer dog: the pit bull. For 14 years I owned a friendly, loyal pit bull named Esmerelda.
Ezzy—as I called her—was a gift from a girlfriend. I was 21 at the time and I'd made a few remarks, driven by testosterone, about wanting to own a pit bull someday. The truth is, I probably wouldn't have followed through on getting the dog on my own. Now I hate to think what I would've missed.
I didn't know what to expect when Ezzy arrived. Would this dog—this sweet, frisky pup—rip my throat open while I was sleeping? Would she terrorize toddlers or attack my mailman? It's bred into them, right? The killer instinct?
Well, no. Not this one, anyway. What she did do was annoy my visitors with her overaffectionate personality. She was stealthy about it, though. "Oh, pay no attention to me," she seemed to want to say. "Just continue with your conversation, and forget the fact that I'm creeping onto your lap. Just scratch my ears and everything will be OK."
Ezzy was an eager, willing companion, whatever the activity. She recognized words like "walk," "ride" and "squirrel," and reacted to them with a barking frenzy. Even the jangling of car keys could set her off.
She had some remarkable talents. Ezzy could shred an aluminum can without cutting her lips. She had the dexterity to go up and down the tight spiral staircase to my bedroom, and a knack for intimidating door-to-door salespeople (because they couldn't see her tail wagging happily).
As Ezzy grew older, she turned into quite an impressive specimen: 70 pounds of barrel-chested muscle, with a head like a chunk of granite. Was her massive jaw intimidating? Absolutely. Could she have wreaked havoc if she'd been so inclined? Without question. But she didn't have it in her.
Her lack of killer instinct became obvious when a stray cat began hanging around the house. "This cannot end well," I said to myself. I believed it was only a matter of time before the fur would fly, and there would be one cat fewer in the world.
One day, the cat became so bold he wandered in through an open door, and Ezzy was on him in a flash. The cat hunkered down and prepared for the worst. Ezzy began to wrestle playfully with him, in the same way I roughhoused with her. The cat was indignant about the situation, but he came away in one slobbery, confused piece.
In July of her third year, Ezzy began to exhibit an intense fear of loud noises that would haunt her for the rest of her days—and I got my first real glimpse of her awesome strength. It was fireworks season. When I pulled into the driveway, I didn't hear Ezzy's usual yips from the backyard. I went to investigate, and discovered a dog-size hole in the wooden fence. She'd turned the pickets into kindling.
The next time, she was left inside during a thunderstorm. When I came home, an interior door was ripped in two. There were bite marks on the doorknob. It looked like a crime scene. I found the culprit shuddering in a closet. It was like the joke about the 800-pound gorilla—but with a twist. Where does a terrified pit bull go? Anywhere she wants.
Ezzy lived longer than most large dogs, but just before her 14th birthday she suffered a stroke. Steroids helped her recover, but six months later she began to develop breathing problems, and it was obvious she didn't have much time to live.
When the final day came, my wife and I took Ezzy to our vet. At 80, Dr. Tim McLeod spoke with a gentle, pronounced Texas twang. He helped us get through it—the most difficult thing I'd ever done—with dignity and a sense of calm.
I buried Ezzy beneath the hardpan soil of my backyard, muscling my way past rocks that would've stopped me cold had I been digging for any other purpose. Ezzy had always had a bit of a stubborn streak, and I decided it was fitting I show a bit of her spirit myself.
The next morning the clinic called. Dr. McLeod had passed away in his sleep, just hours after helping Ezzy find her final peace. His funeral was packed with hundreds of mourners. But for me, it was really two services: one for a caring, compassionate Southern gentleman, and one for a pit bull that can never be replaced.
Rehder lives in Dripping Springs, Texas.
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First it was the Bloodhound, sensationalized in the dramatizations of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Then it was the Doberman Pinscher, symbol of the Nazi menace for a nation at war. Today, it is the Pit bull that is vilified for the depravity of his master.
At perhaps no time in history has mankind been as ignorant of natural canine behavior as we find ourselves at the beginning of the 21st century. The human/dog bond—the most complex and profound inter-species relationship in the history of mankind—has now been reduced to a simple axiom: Breed of dog = degree of dangerousness.
Today, police chase down fleeing Pit bulls in the street, firing dozens of wild shots in response to media-fed rumors of supernatural Pit bull abilities. Politicians coach and nurture this fear with their own brand of rhetoric used to assist in the passing of quick and ineffective legislation created to pacify communities ignorant of the real cause for dog attacks. Hundreds of animal shelters throughout the country kill all unclaimed Pit bull-looking dogs, as they are deemed "unadoptable" solely on their physical appearance.
In a society unparalleled in its access to information and ability to control our natural environment, we now claim that we are unable to master our dogs. Unwilling to assume responsibility for the control and care of our canine companions, we instead hang entire breeds of dogs in effigy for the sins of their owners. Society now accepts this "solution to the dog bite problem" because we have been placated by a Pit Bull Placebo.
Like the pharmacologically inactive sugar pill dispensed to pacify a patient who supposes it to be medicine, eradication of the Pit bull is heralded as the cure for severe dog attacks. However, a placebo is administered solely to appease a person's mental duress. In the present day climate of fear and misinformation about Pit bulls and dog attacks, eradication of the Pit bull is the placebo administered to ease the public's mental anxiety. This, of course, does not address the underlying causes of why dogs attack and how they have been allowed access to their victims.
The book, The Pit Bull Placebo: The Media, Myths and Politics of Canine Aggression, explores and reveals how our views and beliefs about canine aggression have changed over the last 150 years and how our perceptions about the nature and behavior of dogs has been influenced and shaped by persons and organizations who often times disseminate information about dog attacks which is tailored to further an agenda unrelated to the improvement of the human/dog bond.
We have come to be in the midst of a social hysteria about Pit bulls because we have abandoned centuries-old common sense and reasoning and have been duped by inaccurate reporting from a media that thrives on sensationalism and by politicians who traffic in rumors, myths and pseudoscience in their efforts to pass legislation that demonizes dogs while exonerating criminal and abusive owners.
Despite the intense media, political and public interest in dog attacks, there is a disturbing scarcity of accurate information and investigation done on the real causes and reasons for these incidents.
If we truly believe that the extremely rare cases of fatal dog attacks merit extreme measures in the management of dogs—if our concern and shock is genuine—then we must be equally genuine and sincere in seeking out and addressing the real causes for these incidents.
Whether our goal is community safety, understanding canine behavior, furtherance of humane treatment towards dogs, or the advancement of the human-dog bond, it is critical that we examine all the details available about dog attacks.
The Pit Bull Placebo examines actual cases of severe dog attacks during the last 150 years—the circumstances, the individual dogs involved, the victims, and our interpretations of these events—in an attempt to offer a reasoned and balanced perspective on the behavior of dogs and the critical role humans play in the management and treatment of our canine companions.
Only by stepping back from the swirl of present-day hysteria surrounding isolated cases of severe canine aggression and examining the problem from a broader and more objective perspective can we hope to understand and effectively address the human and canine behaviors which have contributed to these incidents.
Information from this website is excerpted from the book: The Pit Bull Placebo: The Myths, Media and Politics of Canine Aggression, and is copy written by Karen Delise and Anubis Publishing.
By Karen Delise
Introduction
Ch. 1. The Function of Dogs in 19th Century America
Ch. 2. Imagery and the Media in 19th Century America: The Bloodhound
Ch. 3. Creating Dangerous Dogs: The Newfoundland & the Northern Breeds
Ch. 4. How Popularity and Function Influence Aggression
Ch. 5. The Reporting of Dog Attacks in Early 20th Century Media
Ch. 6. The Use and Misuse of Courage: The Bulldog
Ch. 7. The Media Re-Shapes an Image: The German Shepherd
Ch. 8. The Myth of the Super-Predator: The Doberman Pinscher
Ch. 9. Setting Dogs Up for Failure: The New Guard Dogs
Ch. 10. The Media Attacks a Breed: The Pit Bull
Ch. 11. Pseudoscience and Hysteria Triumph
Ch. 12. Fighting Dogs: Branded with the Sins of Their Masters
Ch. 13. Sensationalism Replaces Common Sense
Ch. 14. The Real Causes of Dog Attacks
Ch. 15. The Pit Bull Placebo: Conclusions on Canine Aggression
Appendix A - Dog Attacks Reported in Northeastern Newspapers, 1864 – 1899
Appendix B - Dog Attacks Reported in U.S. Newspapers, 1960 – 1975
Appendix C - Denver, Colorado – "Evidence" Used to Ban Pit Bulls
Appendix D – Denver, Colorado – An Ineffective and Uninformed Approach to Dog Attacks
When David was in the hospital, therapy dogs would come into the children's ward and visit with them. One of the dogs was a pit bull that young David was quite taken with. He begged his father to get a pit bull when he returned home from the hospital. But David didn't return home and Thomas's life came crashing down around him.
Shortly after David's passing, out of the blue, a 2-year-old pit bull named Sprocket happened into Thomas's life. Thomas knew instantly this was the dog he would have gotten for his 8-year-old son had he lived. Sadly, David and Sprocket would never meet, but Thomas and Sprocket could honor David's memory by giving back to other children who were ill. Thomas took Sprocket through the Delta Service Dog program and Sprocket began making regular trips to the children's ward of the hospital where David had once been. Sprocket was a delight for the kids. When Sprocket was there, a least for awhile, the kids could be kids, their illnesses and worries forgotten. Just as Sprocket helped the kids heal a little, she helped Thomas heal too.
But life dealt Thomas another blow when his wife left him. Thomas knew it was time for a change. He moved to Corning six weeks ago, staying with friends and looking for a place to rent. To his surprise, Thomas was finding
it difficult to find a place to live. Time and time again he heard, "No pets," or when pets were allowed, he heard "No pit bulls."Thomas found his way to Second Chance Pet Rescue after someone told him about the Pit Bull Ambassador program. "If I have to live in my car, I will," he said. "But I'm not going to lose my best friend."
Second Chance Pet Rescue gave Thomas some pointers on searching for a place to rent and offered to test Sprocket for her AKC Canine Good Citizen certification to ease some of the fears that a potential landlord might have. Two days later, Sprocket passed her AKC Canine Good Citizen test with flying colors and Thomas found a place to live with his beloved pet.
To pass the test, a dog must score 100 percent of the following 10 items: Accept a friendly stranger; sit politely for petting; appearance and grooming; walk on a loose leash; walk through a crowd; sit, down, and stay on command; come when called; reaction to another dog; reaction to distractions; and supervised separation.
The AKC Canine Good Citizen test is available free of charge to any pit bull and their owner. The program is made possible by a grant from Animal Farm Foundation (www.animalfarmfoundation.org) who provides a cash incentive to Second Chance Pet Rescue for each pit bull/owner team that passes.
The money is used to continue the training of Pit Bull Ambassador dogs at the Corning Animal Shelter.
More information on the AKC Canine Good Citizen certification is available from Debbie Eaglebarger at 824-1985.
Second Chance Pet Rescue is a non-profit organization which volunteers its time at the Corning Animal Shelter. The shelter phone number is 824-7054.##
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