Houston Dog Fight Bust

A commenter asked me how I knew the dogs in the Houston dog fighting bust had been euthanized, and I realized after I replied to him that I probably ought to have cited where I got that information. (I will be 100 percent honest here: I really didn't think anyone except for a couple of my friends and maybe my boyfriend ever logged in to read my blog, and they rarely question my sources.)

Anyway, got the info from a variety of places, but I had two sources that seemed to have the most definitive information on the subject of the dogs' fates:

The Houston Press' Hair Balls Column/Blog reported on Nov. 21 that the Houston SPCA spokeswoman Meera Nandlal told it:

“These animals are bred from a long line of fighting dogs to be aggressive,” Houston SPCA spokeswoman Meera Nandlal told Hair Balls this morning. “We have made the decision that they will be humanely euthanized.”

The same SPCA spokeswoman told a community paper called the Beaumont Enterprise that the Houston SPCA will "humanely euthanize these animals" because they "have been bred from a long-line of fighting dogs."

That last comment, by the way, made me laugh a little bit because pretty much all APBTs in America--at least the ones that actually *are* APBTs, not the multiple dogs people mistake for APBTs--are descended from long lines of fighting dogs. Really long, in fact. Going back to, like, England and Ireland in the 19th century. Still, the people who bred them often trusted them around their kids and treated them like any other working dog.

Now, maybe there was a misunderstanding--maybe the SPCA spokeswoman meant they would make an exception for *some* of the dogs or that they would evaluate them first for adoptability or that she *thought* they'd be euthanized. But she sounds pretty sure in these quotes, and I have to say: Based on the setup in the days leading up to these stories where she said they would be euthanizing the dogs, the SPCA and other humane types were doing all they could to prepare people for the fact that there was no way these dogs were leaving the shelters alive. But really--from the get-go they were telling us they were conditioned killing machines that couldn't be pets. It seems to me that the intention was clear from the start here.

Gotta Brag on my Boys Today

So it's the day after Thanksgiving, and company (Rob's sister and her boyfriend) have left after a nice four-day visit. We'd planned their visit weeks in advance, and leading up to Thanksgiving, I was looking forward to it . . . but also sort of dreading it.

We have a lot of company, but generally the people who come to visit are fellow dog people--a lot of them fellow pit bull people, at that (last Thanksgiving, it was us and our friend Aja who is a dog trainer who owns two Schutzhund III titled pit bulls, for example). Rob's sister and her boyfriend love animals and do like dogs, but they are cat people. They volunteer with cat rescue and own four rescue cats themselves, occasionally foster cats for the local shelter. I kept wondering how they'd feel about our dogs--our part pit bull Tucker, who has as much prey drive as the day is long and thinks smaller furrier things exist for him to eat, and our American pit bull terrier Doc, whose cropped ears and lean physique do, I admit, make him look rather formidable.

Tucker, I figured, would be easy. He's a mix, he only looks like he's got pit bull influence if someone tells you (when we tell people, they look at him and go, "oh, yeah, you're right, he does look like he's part pit bull!"). He's a lover, a certified therapy dog, and he's got floppy ears and an expressive, puppyish face that could make you melt. I knew that once they spent a bit of time with him, they'd love him. Everyone does, he's that easy to be around.

I thought Doc might be a harder sell--he's 100 percent ox in a pit bull suit, and he spends much of his time breaking things, stumbling over things, and plowing through things as he goes about his business. He knows all of his commands very well but still, he lacks that nice house-dog polish that dogs that were raised in families usually have. Doc was, from the little I can gather about his past, raised on a chain in Alabama and was confiscated in an animal control raid in the early 90s. So even though he will sit and attention heel and retrieve dumbbells over walls and all that, there's a decidedly primitive, uncultured side to him that we just can't hide. Got something in your hands? Doc will jump up in the air and try to get a good view of it, just because he's curious and he knows he's not allowed to actually jump on you. Want to say hi and ask Doc for a kiss? You're likely to get a face full of exuberant headbutt and slobber and maybe a paw in the crotch for good measure. Leave something that smells good on the counter? Don't expect it to still be there when you get back, because Doc just cannot resist counter surfing when no one is around.

But the hardest thing for most people to get their heads around, really, is the fact that we don't let the boys interact unless we are able to give 100 percent of our attention to them so we can head off any problems before they arise. Any time we are out of the house--hell, out of the room!--the dogs are not left alone together. When I'm busy doing something (like writing this blog, for instance) I put Doc behind a baby gate in the kitchen while Tucker naps on the couch. When food is around, the dogs are separated because they are both too food driven to be trusted to behave around such a valuable resource.

Generally people see the metal gate in the kitchen, with the big white pit bull behind it, and assume that Doc is mean and can't be trusted around animals or people. Even after we explain to them that it's just our way of managing the dogs and keeping them out of trouble, they sort of just feel a concern about Doc . . . I remember once my cousin came to visit with her boyfriend and his 10 year old son, and even though we explained to them that the only reason we were leaving Doc in the kitchen was because he was going to be so excited about company, we didn't want both dogs running to the door and getting all riled up and maybe getting obnoxious with one another, they were instantly suspicious of Doc. I took him out and showed them his sits and downs and cute pet tricks, and when the son came over to give Doc a biscuit, the father instinctively just grabbed his kid and said "No!" Poor Doc. He really loves being with people and gets along with everybody.

So anyway, Rob's sister and boyfriend were coming, and I was wondering how they would respond to my crazy pit bull, who was obviously so unstable he couldn't be trusted to run the house freely with my sweet little therapy dog mutt.

But fortunately, along with a lot of his bad habits Doc has also retained a certain amount of Southern charm and hospitality, and he got to work convincing them that really, he was not such a bad guy. They arrived on a Tuesday and for their first day, I left Doc confined a lot of the day so they could get a chance to relax and acclimate. They were fine with him, so on Wednesday the gloves were off and I released the beast, and I was quickly stunned at how intuitive he was--he can't help being clumsy and uncouth, but he was remarkably gentle and easy on our new guests and gave respectable amounts of friendly dog kisses. He put them at ease very quickly, and by Thanksgiving evening he was up on the couch with them cuddled into a tiny pit bull ball, napping and snoring with them while they watched James Bond movies. He was gentle, he was easygoing, he stayed out of the way (mostly) and really rose to the occasion.

He definitely made friends. And I have to say, he really impressed me once again with his versatility--raised on a chain, brought to a shelter, picked up by a rescue, bounced around rescue homes, trained in all manner of ways by a number of people, finally landing in my house, picking up a really challenging dog sport with me, and he's never once missed a beat. He's a working dog, he's a house dog, he's got a past, he's fine with his present. He's just all-around the stuff I admire in a good, balanced pit bull. And very little of it is my doing--almost all of what he is, he is because of what a good pit bull was designed to be.

All of These Dogs are Dead

So on Nov. 14, it was reported in the Houston Chronicle that a huge dog fighting ring was busted in Houston. Possibly the largest dog-fighting operation in the country, authorities said. They seized 187 dogs.

To some people, this sounds like good news, right? I mean, really, a bunch of really bad guys who do awful things to dogs were arrested--how could that be bad? Here's how: Two days after the story broke, anothe story appeared in the Houston Chronicle (read it here), explaining that the Houston SPCA was housing the dogs and that a judge would eventually decide the fate of the confiscated animals. Then the story goes on to quote an officer who works for Houston Humane Society's Rescuing Animals in Danger program. And it quickly becomes clear that these dogs do not stand a chance of getting out of the shelter alive. At least not with this kind of "advocate" on their side:

"It's very obvious that these are not pets," he said, adding that the animals are "conditioned" to fight.

. . .

"My guess is that the majority will have to be euthanized. Some of the dogs may be people friendly, but the question you have to ask yourself is whether or not you'd want your 3-year-old child around the dog," said Leone

Didn't these people learn anything at all from the whole Michael Vick fiasco? Those dogs are all over the place showing the world that dogs used or bred for fighting are not necessarily a danger to society. One of those dogs is a therapy dogs and goes to nursing homes. Another lives with a guy whose also owns a world-champion disc dog. Several are living happily in family homes--one lives right here in Maryland with a great family who adopted him.

So it comes as no surprise to learn a few days later that every single one of the 187 dogs from that Houston bust have been euthanized. Every one. By the authorities that "rescued" them from fighting.

I'm no dog-fighting apologist but it appalls me to see the allegedly "humane" organizations that rant on and on about the evils of dog fighting spreading anti-pit bull myths and propaganda. And then using those myths to kill the dogs it saves from busts.

Honestly, it makes me think that these organizations are less interested in saving dogs from fighting and more interested in making big, sexy busts, which result in positive media attention for the organizations, which then results in support from the public who only hear about how the "humane" groups saved the poor pit bulls who were inbred to be "mean" and made to "conditioned" to fight using treadmills. I searched all over the Houston Chronicle web site and I couldn't find any information abou the fate of the dogs. I do wish they would report on that--and maybe do a bit of real reporting on what the dogs were really like, whether they really deserved to die, and whether organizations like Houston Humane, the HSUS, and others have a history of condemning the victims of dog fighting--the DOGS--rather than saving them.

Tugging

Tucker's favorite activity ever: Playing Tug.

Tracking

Got some new photos of the boys recently. Doc is doing great with tracking--we go out 2 or 3 times per week, and he continues to impress me with his drive for this particular task. I took him out this past Saturday and tracked him in some stubbly tall grass that was full of thorns and sticks, and he was fantastic--kept his nose in the rough stuff, downed on his articles, didn't give up even when he sort of lost the track. I say sort of because it seems it was handler error that caused us to get lost. There was an article at the end of the track, which Doc didn't find. And me, being the fumbling dummy that I am, didn't even realize that we'd reached the track's end. So Doc overshot the article, lost scent of the track and circled and circled trying to find it again--he tried so HARD. I put him in a down while I stamped out a few footsteps and put down a new article, just to show him that we were done . . . and I even managed to muck that up. I didn't know where my article was again because it was lost in the tall grass. Butch reminded me for probably the third time now that I NEED to know exactly where my tracks are. I can't expect the dog to succeed if I can't help him out. He's right--I really need to get serious here!

Anyway, here are some recent photos of Doc tracking a couple of weeks ago at Baltimore County Community College. There's a nice field there that's on a hill, but it's really not used for anything much, so the grass is nice and lush and we always have it to ourselves.

Teaching him to hold the dumbbell

So Doc will go out and get the dumbbell and bring it back. And he'll even jump over the wall to go get it and bring it back.

Now we're working on holding it calm, firm, and steady. He's getting better, but I'm having a hard time being patient!

For the curious, here are some videos of us doing some hold exercises. Not terribly exciting, but this is what we do in our free time! Oh, and look, our kitchen is being remodeled. Also not very exiciting, but that is the other thing we do in our spare time!