Fear and Loathing in Ontario

My apologies for the lack of activity. For those of you wondering Forrest or Dee Jay is doing great in his new home. I got one email from his new family letting me know how well he was doing. I’m thrilled Forrest has come really far, worked really hard and deserves this. If everything goes well things will be finalized soon and he will officially become theirs.

Now back to my original thought for this post. I was reading through older articles that were published about Pit bulls. I read an article in particular from Barbara Kay a “columnist” (I use quotes as most of her works are un cited or uses extremely biased research) for the National Post. Her lack of knowledge on the subject was laughable. She cited the typical stuff that all pit bulls are all monsters and dangerous. I found many other articles written by her bashing Pit Bulls. I’m really not sure how the Post continues to print her biased and fact less trash. Its disgusting. PERIOD. She spews hate for the breed with zero experience or knowledge other than her inflated statistics and fear. It’s scary that someone so closed-minded is taken seriously enough to be a published author. She actually states in one of her hate speeches that BSLs actually reduce the amount of dogs put down (apparently she has never talked to a shelter worker). I mean we have all come across people like her in our lifetimes  stubborn, bull-headed, and the worst of all incredibly misinformed. Her statistics which she rarely sites but I’m sure are taken from websites that spread similar messages of fear and hate. I wonder if her articles were about discriminating against people based on looks would she have the same welcomed response. Some how I doubt it. After reading some of her hate speeches, there are two points I want to address.

The first being that many of these pit bulls that bit some one, were from “nice loving homes”. That’s all well and good but just because someone is nice doesn’t mean they are a responsible dog owner. Many dog problems stem from owners who give all affection with zero rules, exercise, or discipline. That is a recipe for disaster with any breed. I have known many people in my life that are awesome and amazing but should not have a dog of any kind. It reminds me of my uncle growing up. He was the nicest man  but had a crazy golden retriever. He was a dog owner who was a really great person but had zero knowledge of what to do with his dog. Being nice has nothing to do with having the discipline and motivation to train and exercise a powerful breed. If we took away the pit bull and gave this same person a German Sheppard, Doberman, or Rotti I can almost guarantee we would be in the same scenario, just less media attention. So no loving your dog does not automatically  make you a responsible dog owner.

The second point being that if you were mauled by a pit bull some how that makes you an expert on BSL and pit bulls in general. She makes reference in one of her tirades that clearly we should listen this girl (who was making a PRO BSL speech) as she was bit by a pit bull once. I’m going to be blunt here and if you don’t like it that’s fine we’re all entitled to our opinion. Being bit by a pit bull means just that you were bitten by a pit bull. You were bitten by a dog it did not transform you into an expert on dog bites. Many of the people for BSL are dog bite victims asking for a ban out of fear and lack of understanding and education. Contrary to what Barb would have you believe dogs do not “snap”. There are always warning signs before a bite. Some are subtle and most people will over look them but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. Many people bitten by dogs have no knowledge on body language, how to approach, or what a dog that should not be approached looks like. I commonly hear well their tail was wagging. Tail wagging does not automatically mean happy dog. Another issue being most people can’t even identify a pit bull if they saw one. An example being an article Barbara wrote where she calls two dogs in a picture pit bulls. The dog on the right is clearly a boxer, this is someone who has spent time researching pit bulls as she so often regurgitates facts (no matter how skewed and biased) but like most people cannot ID one by sight. Was the dog involved DNA tested?  If not how do you know it’s a pit bull? Short answer you don’t. It would be like saying you know I’m Korean (I am by the way) because I look Asian. There is absolutely no way to tell by my looks alone what Nationality I am (people guess all the time). Just like there’s no way to tell the breed of dog on visual ID alone. Even shelter workers who are trained in this and see dogs all day are wrong 80% of the time when IDing by looks alone.

So in closing being a “columnist” doesn’t mean you know anything, so beware what you read in the media. Being a nice person doesn’t make you magically a responsible dog owner any more than my wishing to never read another hate filled article about pit bulls by someone with ZERO experience with them. Some dog owners are irresponsible. Some of these owners have pit bulls. But they are not the majority, just a small portion the media chooses to highlight.