He's a pretty versatile dog, that Doc.

Tracking at November's Working Pit Bull Terrier Club of America championship. He disqualified pretty quickly, and you'll see why shortly. But he did have some strong moments. This was his first time tracking any track that wasn't baited.

Beginning the track.



Continuing down the track pretty confidently.



Look, he found an article! (He downs at articles to indicate that he found them)


And then he shows his true colors and decides to leave the track completely to go check out some tall grass. He lost his focus and that was pretty much where his performance fell apart. But he did find both articles at least.


Practicing some easy jumps. Out . . .

. . . and back.


And the bitework. I'm really happy with how he's been doing with all this work and training, and he's really enjoying himself!

As you may know, pit bulls are banned in the province of Ontario, Canada. The law states that people in Ontario are prohibited from "owning, breeding, transferring, importing or abandoning pit bulls." Some dogs are exempt from the regulation, granted they meet a couple of requirements. They must be: "Owned by an Ontario resident on August 29, 2005., or Born in Ontario within 90 days after August 29, 2005." So basically, if you owned a pit bull before the ban went into place, you get to keep it, as long as you muzzle it in public and have the dog spayed or neutered. Unfortunately, dogs born after that date need to leave the province or be destroyed. (You can read the provisions of the law here, if you are interested in more detail.)

There are some good rescue groups out there, such as Bullies in Need in Ontario, trying to help worthy dogs get to safety outside the provice. But as we all know, there are more pit bulls than there are responsible owners for them, pretty much everywhere in North America. So it does my mind good when I read a story like the one posted on KC Dog Blog about Bandit, a banned Ontario dog getting a new lease on life after being accepted into Diane Jessup's Lawdogs program in Washington state, which trains pit bulls to be narcotics detection dogs for the state police.

Good on ya, Bandit, make Ontario's pit bull lovers proud!

http://btoellner.typepad.com/kcdogblog/2008/01/bandit-leaves-o.html

Add B-More Dog to your Myspace Friends list!

Recently, a group of intrepid pit bull owners living in and around Baltimore founded B-More Dog, which stands for Baltimore Dog Owners Guild. Our goal is to reach out to dog owners, particularly pit bull owners, in our region and connect them with services they may need . . . training, health care, spay/neuter resources, training "scholarships" for young people who may not have the money but want to do more with their dogs.

Our goal is to reach out to pit bull owners in the region and help them become better, more responsible owners. We want to do this independent of rescue, since rescue is so labor intensive in and of itself. We want to accomplish our goals without making new or inexperienced owners feel like idiots for asking questions and seeking help.

We just set up a Myspace page, visit us here: www.myspace.com/bmoredog

Make us your friend--we like friends!

News Priorities

So on Tuesday morning, I got to the office to find a handful of e-mails marked "urgent," telling me that there had been a pit bull attack in Baltimore city the night before. Apparently, the local Fox affiliate, Fox 45 (WBFF), was planning to do the dreaded "pit bull story" and was looking for someone to speak on the breed's behalf. They needed someone immediately, wanted an in-studio interview, etc. Big pain in the ass, short notice, the usual. Aja Harris, a pit bull owner and dog trainer (www.muttmagic.com) whose dogs are national schutzhund competitors, agreed to rush over to the studio to do the spot.

Well what does the news report? Not on the dogs, not really so much on the child's condition, nothing about the fact that people had called animal control about this dog multiple times with no response, nothing at all investigating the alleged ownership of this dog (that, from what I can see on the news, was wearing some kind of studded/spiked harness, which makes me think that *someone* owned him). Instead, they report some half-baked story about an argument and street fight between the neighbors on the block over the fact that the dog had to be put down at animal control. You'd think that'd be a sideline to a bigger story addressing the fact that the city's AC is completely ineffectual and routinely fails to follow up on complaints about nuisance and dangerous animals. But that would be so much work.

Here's the gist of what appeared on the news Tuesday night.

http://www.foxbaltimore.com/newsroom/md/topstory/topstory3.shtml

PIT BULL ATTACK


A pit bull attack provokes a neighborhood feud.

Tuesday afternoon the feud erupted into a violent street fight in Northeast Baltimore.

Meanwhile, as the child recovers from her wounds police are looking into the possibility that the animal involved was being trained for dog fighting.

Tuesdays chaos took place on Bonaparte Avenue.
Police responded to a street fight involving as many as a dozen people.

A witness says, "they came down the streets with bats trying to fight my grandson."

The incident was in the same block where 9 year old Cierra Thomas was attacked by a pit bull Monday night.
Animal control officials confirm that the dog that attacked Thomas was been involved in dog fighting.

The dog has been euthanized and Thomas's grandmother say there's been neighborhood backlash since the attack, that escalated into more violence this afternoon.

Thomas is recovering at Johns Hopkins Children's Center. She had surgery Tuesday morning and is now listed in good condition.

Last Updated: Wednesday, January 9 2008, 09:31 AM

Bad Rap Blog

I gotta say, I really do love the Bad Rap web site and blog. On particularly dark days, when I really feel like there's nothing good going on in the pit bull "world," I can visit their site and get a little shot in the arm.

If you haven't visited the blog lately, you might enjoy reading it. It's smart and funny, and often features insanely cute pit bulls. What is it in the water in California, anyway? All their damn pit bulls are ridiculously adorable!

http://badrap-blog.blogspot.com

Training Photos from Jan. 8

I keep telling myself that 2008 is gonna be great . . . hopefully this past Saturday's training session, which really was great, is just the beginning.

In the morning I laid a super-long track for him, baited intermittently with hot dogs. The grass was dry but the ground was damp, pretty nice conditions for a late morning track. Doc went right to work, stayed fairly square on the track, kept his head down, and hit both turns without too much trouble. Turns have been a problem for him lately. He gets distracted, then sort of meanders and gets lazy and distracted. I've tried to be a bit more aware of my tracklaying as a result, which will hopefully work to both of our benefits. He indicated one article by sitting, which was very strange since he's been trained since day one to down at the articles. we'll have to do a bit of brushup work there as well I guess!

Obedience is still a work in progress. Doc is almost too enthusiastic, and he dances and stomps and carries on while he's heeling, which creates problems with forging. Butch gave me a little talking to and told us to go back and do some foundation work to get some focus and clean up the picture.

And finally, bitework. We backtied Doc, along with two other dogs, and Ron worked all three dogs at the same time. Doc was on it!

The bad guy approaches. Doc barks.


Doc gets a bite.


And he gets a good grip and hangs on. Good boy!


After his turn is up for this round, Doc's frustrated so he starts barking at me. Uh, the bad guy's stage right, Doc.


Thanks to Amanda, for taking the photos!

Pit Bull Makes Friend

Wow, I really do suck at keeping this thing updated. Guess that's OK, though, since so few people know it exists!

Anyway, Happy New Year. Doc made a new friend. Rob's friend Justin came to visit from Colorado for a few days, and Doc took a liking to him. He takes a liking to pretty much anyone willing to pay attention to him, but he especially likes people willing to play games with him.

Hello, I am pleased to meet you. I hear you are from Colorado. How interesting.


Enough small talk. Now we play.


We like company who likes the pit bull. He can be very difficult to like some days!

Oh, and Happy Holidays from Snaggletooth Tuckerdog.