IrishAyes
IrishAyes's JournalI understand
My argument is only with people who overreact at either end of the scale. I enjoyed your post.
What?
Does someone else's overreaction entitle you to sound like a bully? Are you schoolboys or something? Shoving each other on the playground?
Everyone
Please try to understand the legitimate concerns of some anti-pitt posters here today. There are indeed too many ill-bred pitts in the hands of antisocial owners. The statistics should not be ignored. That isn't to say the breed should be eradicated, but maybe those same owners need to face far heavier criminal negligence penalties in the event of attacks than they do now. That might make at least a few be more careful in their own best interests.
Trust me, it's no fun when any powerful dog mounts a serious attack against an innocent person. I read dog signs as well as anyone, and if not for a ready and steady hand with pepper spray, I'd have been road kill myself on more than one occasion.
However, I've also known and owned good pitts. A friend had one named Wimpy because he was. Loved everybody he saw and would grab the right hand and shake it back and forth in welcome. It could be unnerving if you didn't know him. One time when I hadn't visited for months, I sat down in a chair at Wimpy's house and he jumped in my lap and started to lick my face. Partly because I was dressed up and headed downtown, I instinctively pulled my head back, so Wimpy grabbed my neck in his jaws and started to 'shake hands'. Any other dog on earth and I would've freaked out with good reason.
But there's Wimpy, and then there are some other pitts, so... try to have a heart for people too. I socialized my chows to the point I was lucky they bit their food. Not everyone does that or even really knows how. Some have no idea of pack heirarchy or how to fulfill their duties as alpha. It's never wise to allow any animal that's potentially dangerous to engage in alpha behaviors such as preceding you through a door walking ahead of you or being fed first or any of a multitude of actions that too many dog owners don't understand. I'm with Cesar Milan on this. When I made dinner, I ate mine first. While the dogs' food stayed in easy reach of them, yet they wouldn't dream of eating until I finished first and gave them permission.
BTW, if you ever find yourself under serious attack and don't have pepper spray, I'll tell you what most criminals and law enforcement types don't publicize: a dog's most vulnerable point is his chest. Strike a hard enough blow with your fist square in the center and you have a good chance of stopping his heart.
Okay now. Anyone who wants to accuse me of not loving dogs, go ahead and have at it. If you do, I've learned whose opinion is not worth bothering about.
Indicating
a strong possibility that owners and their dogs often resemble each other.
Fortunately today's well bred Chihuahuas tend to have more settled temperaments than their past kin.
Maybe, just maybe
... Gray doesn't love getting bitten. Your comment is arrogant to the point of extreme rudeness. Smacks of self righteousness, it does.
It's a well known fact
... that you can always trust internet scientists. I know, because I read this on the internet.
Matter of fact - true story - a year or two ago somebody called me up all hysterical because they'd read (probably in the Onion) about internet viruses being contagious to humans. Last week at Sunday School the talk was all about how that horrid black man in THEIR White House intends to send predator drones to kill Americans of Middle Eastern descent in their homes. HERE, I mean. How they reconcile that notion with their belief that he's a Muslim too I haven't yet figured out, but it probably makes sense to them. You think I'm joking, but they were serious.
Yessir, if it's on the internet I believe it.
This might help
Drs. Foster & Smith sell a new type of neck collar for dogs - it's a padded tube (not a cone) and adjustable to cover the entire length of the neck. This allows the dog to eat and drink and get in comfortable positions but w/o being able to bend the neck and reach most of its body.
If you have or can designate an extra room for Sadie when you have to leave her alone for extended periods, that might help. Is she trained to pads or papers? I'd make her as cozy as possible but remove any of your heirlooms, because she might turn to destructive behavior when she can't reach her hind leg.
Try Relora when Sadie's alone for extended periods. Use liquid sedatives in diffusers she can't reach. Leave in her reach old workout clothes you haven't washed so they'll have your scent to comfort her. Put her kibble in Kong toys so she has to work for it. Leave a radio on NPR but out of her reach. If you can put a tv up high on the wall where she can see but not reach it, buy some continuous-play DVDs featuring other dogs - they really do like it. You might even record yourselves talking or singing to her. My Brigid and Molly love to watch nature shows with me, and besides their intent stares at the screen, I know they're delighted because if they see a cat or any prey animal running, they jump around and bark!
Even if you have to ask the vet to fit Sadie with an indestructible metal brace for those times she's alone, it would still beat putting her down. I admire the efforts you've already gone to, and I hope one of my suggestions might help a little also.
Popular Page!
I showed it to some friends, and we're all agreed that whatever your present profession might be, you could always fall back on home design for a living if the need or wish ever came about.
But you know what blesses me the most? Seeing a couple happily tackle such a herculean task together. Bodes well for your mutual future.
I've had my nose buried in Architectural Digest and home design books and magazines almost since I could read. For retirement I chose a tiny town in the affordable MidWest although I knew the culture shock would be tough. I wanted a place as far north as I could afford, and upper elevation to guard against flood. The town seems to enjoy some protection from tornadoes, probably due to surrounding topography. Tornadoes bear straight down on us and then typically veer off just before barreling through. So far!
But I wouldn't have moved here at all, really, except for winning a hundred-year-old Vic with 'good bones' at auction for $16,500. Those two qualities were about all it had going for it, but I love antiques and challenges. The first 7 years it gobbled up at least another $50K in the first round of complete rehab, and I estimate around $20K more over the years until it's finished. But it will be worth the effort and expense when done. If the housing market's doing well when I die, the charity I've willed it to should see a tidy bequest since I stick to cash and the Amish.
Only after living here several years did I learn one of the main reasons to preserve the place, though. Because I'm blessed with a complete paper trail on the property, I knew the house itself was built around a log cabin erected in 1847. But now I know that original structure was a slave cabin. The grandest house in town is now a museum, and when I took the tour early on, the docent was railing about what happened during an early Civil War battle here.
"That damnYankee captain rode his horse right through the house! The doctor who owned the place was forced into more modest quarters nearby, and those horrible soldiers made this house their headquarters. But when they left, the first thing the doctor did was to have the oak floors refinished, and you can't even see the horses' hoofmarks anymore. Right there where you're standing!"
I looked down at the floor and suffered a sudden, severe coughing fit to cover what was really hysterical laughter. Must've done a good job, because the lady took it in such a sympathetic way that she hurried to bring me water. Since I still hadn't been upstairs yet and didn't want to get kicked out, I couldn't tell her how lucky the slave-holding 'good doctor' had been not to have the place burned down when our blessed damnYankee soldiers were through with it.
Thanks
Unlike a lot of women especially, it seems, I like domestic breed rats as pets. Concerning their intelligence, researchers recently released a lab study of the other kind showing that even they can express empathy toward strangers of their own kind. They had a divided cage in which one rat was confined w/o food, though the little gate to his section could be opened from the other half of the cage. Then they put a second rat in the second half and gave it food. Before it ate anything, it went and released the other rat so they could both eat.
Years ago a friend had a pet rat that really liked me. At a party at his house one night, I took the rat out of its cage and carried it around on my shoulder awhile. My hair was really long then, and it would sit up on my shoulder, give me a kiss on the cheek, then duck behind my hair, scurry over to the other side for another kiss, and so on. Not everyone thought he was sweet but I did.
Even before those guys hit my driveway,
Swee'Pea had already adopted US. If anyone official had come after him, I don't know how I could have stood it. I would've faced jail first if it would've saved him, though it wouldn't. You know what officials would've done to him - straight to the gas chamber. It was probably concern for their own careers and legal exposure that kept the white truck guys quiet. They dang sure never showed their faces around us again, though! They knew more than I about what he had been trained to do. Neutralize in silence. I was in awe of his ability to escape, and I always hoped (forgive me!) that he managed to bite at least one of them in the process.
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Gender: FemaleHome country: US
Current location: retired to MidWest
Member since: Mon Feb 18, 2013, 10:15 PM
Number of posts: 6,151