As of August 9th 2016 Canada became her new home and 3 weeks later our Jewel stepped into our hearts and our home. Nice to see, this dog loves children and interacts well with dogs, including my other rescued Pitbull/Whippet Okee.
Okee or Oklahoma was rescued by me, in Ardmore Oklahoma about 3 years ago, when I found her left for dead, in an open field in a broken down dog crate in a broken down horse trailer. She was extremely malnourished, dehydrated and very shy when I found her. Despite that, she had a strong will to live, so when I drove as far as Colby Kansas, I got her into a vet and saved her life.
Being a former pitbull owner, I can tell you this, there is not a more humanistic, tactile dog than this breed. We lost our Sampson ( a Red-Nosed Mural Pitbull) on January 23,2014 and I can tell you, that dog was of such a gentle spirit that he left a lasting impact on both our lives. I describe Sampson quite fondly in my 3rd book "Road History." I trucked with that dog along with my wife over 250,000 miles across Canada and United States.
If you truly don't know the history of the Pitbull, let me fill you in on such an incredibly wonderful animal.
In the 19th Century, they were first created in England by breeding English Bulldogs with Terriers, which were then called a Bull & Terrier. Thus in 1860 further being bred in England, they were brought to the United States with a couple of their owners. Pitbulls were then used as herding dogs who protected the livestock along with their families from cattle rustlers.
In 1898 the United Kennel Club was formed and the Pitbull was one of the first breeds to be recognized. As of 1914 to 1918 they were dubbed as America's Dog used widely on posters during World War 1 to sell war bonds and recruit the US Military. Shortly thereafter, they were used as Nannie Dogs to look after babies while Mothers went to work at that time.
In the 1930's many people referred to athletes as "Pitbulls" which was a very common sports metaphor. Basically, it meant such tenacity and a never give up attitude being the highest compliment given to them. There was also a famous racehorse in that era named Pitbull that won quite a few races.
Frequently pitbulls were even associated with children as in the "Our Gang" episodes. Buster Brown shoes corporate mascot for the shoe company was in fact, a pitbull. The famous RCA Victor image was that of a dog and a gramophone which also featured a pitbull terrier on it.
Fifty years later that all changed and by New Years Day of 1986 over 30 communities in the United States were considering banning all pitbull breeds.
The main culprits was that dog fighting had made a comeback in the 1980's whereby the pitbull had become the dog of choice. It was also the preferred dog for drug dealers and street gangs. In 1987 there was a highly publicized attack in which a pitbull guarding a marijuana crop in California mauled and killed a 2 and a half-year-old boy.
By the summer of that same year every single proposed ban had become law due to this media specualtion. Previous to that, the Doberman Pinscher were the hated breed that had been talked about regarding attacks on human beings. In fact in Tijeras New Mexico just outside of Albuquerque passed the toughest inhumane pitbull ban of all time. This bogus, archaic bill allows the animal control officer to seize and destroy the Pitbull on sight without compensation to the owner whatsoever.
These various pitbull breed bans are decried by animal control officers as "the most concentrated assault on a breed specific as they can recall. This "canine racism" places the blame squarely on the inept humans that own them. In fact, many of these so called pitbull attacks are due to a skyrocketing number of poorly bad and terribly trained dogs. These animals were raised by backyard breeders who tried to cash in on the pitbull's growing reputation as a cheap but deadly effective guard dog.
BSL (Breed Specific Legislation)
On August 29,2005, Ontario's Bullshit, BSL came into effect, disallowing pitbulls to reside in their province. One thing, though, BSL doesn't work because it doesn't decrease dog bite incidents. It does give the government permission to come into an Ontario home person's home or apartment and take their family pet without just cause. Any dog that has a square head, muscular body, and thin long tail can be mistaken as a pitbull. In point of truth, the majority of people cannot correctly identify a pitbull either.
This assinine law blames the pitbull dog when it is 100 percent of the time, it's owner and their neglect and proper care of the dog as well as training it. Are we actually stuck in the stone ages people? Would you allow the government to take your dog out of your home for no reason?
I challenge all lawmakers who wants to ban the bully breeds to raise one as their own first! Then tell me if you still want to ban and annihilate them. Legislation should be enacted to say what dogs people cannot own but which people cannot own dogs as well, don't ya think?
From here on, my blogs will center around stories of Pitbulls, various rescue organizations around North America dedicated to saving the pitbull from barbaric fighting rings and poor living situations. I will become a very strong advocate dedicated to helping better these wonderful animals living accommodations and hopefully aid in placing them in loving caring homes of people. My life long charity from this day forward will be a certain percentage of the proceeds of my books will go to help out funding organizations like Prairie Pitbull Rescue to continue their ongoing fight to bring these dogs out of poor living situations. Eventually, I would like to become strongly involved in stopped BSL legislation against the pitbull in provinces such as Ontario, Quebec and now BC.
I encourage everyone who owns a pitbull to send in their photos and stories of how they came to own such a wonderful family pet. Maybe with the right amount of outreach, passion and education possible we can all restore their image. We all need to rehabilitate the pitbull's reputation as an iconic North American Dog to its rightful place among mankind's best friend!
So enjoy the story of when we first encountered the pitbull, when we actually owned a pup that was a lab/pitbull mix. Shadow left such a pawprint on our lives that we continued owning pitbulls long after she left this earth. This is taken from my 2nd book "Sidewinder" Enjoy and don't forget to comment on my blogs either.
That following winter, we acquired a new addition to our family in the form of another dog. Actually, it was the kid’s Dad Hank who managed to get her this cute little puppy. This would be one she could tell everyone would be her very own; in addition to that, she even picked the little girl out. Thus a Black Lab and Pitbull mix, named Shadow arrived at our little home in the woods.
It was also on December 30th of that same year that Victoria got hit with unbelievable borage of snow. Now for those of you who don’t know, Victoria is well known for their temperate winters, but none of the white stuff, whatsoever. Carol, the kids and I had just returned from Nanaimo, where we had spent that Christmas with Hank, his girlfriend and her whiney kid Stefan. We had been tracking the snow storm that was coming in from the state of Oregon when we were watching it on TV up at Hank’s house.
Carol suggested that we leave that morning so we packed up the kids and got an early start. It wasn’t too bad for driving conditions, until we arrived in Victoria when it started to snow. However, that was nothing compared to the snow covered roads, on our way through Metchosin, out towards Sooke, where our new little home was situated. When we arrived at the cabin, you could barely see the driveway, let alone our small bungalow. Carol and I quickly got the kids into our snow covered chalet, pulled out all the winter clothing and had everyone put them on. She turned on the TV, where we could see that there were power outages as well as collapsed roofs from the heavy snow all over parts of Victoria and surrounding areas. In fact, there must have been a good five feet of snow on that delicate roof of ours, therefore I knew someone had to go up there the next day and take care of it.
In the meantime, we had introduced Skyler’s puppy Shadow to my dog Taro, but he really didn`t seemed too enthused with the newest arrival to our family. That evening we were all dressed in toques, our long johns and sweaters as we went to bed with a cold howling wind whipping the cabin from all sides. The next day I knew we had to get an enormous amount of snow off the roof, for fear it could cave in on us. I was quickly voted unanimously to do it, by the other three members of my family.
While the kids were getting warm inside, and Carol was fixing up one of her infamous coffees, I ventured where no man had gone before. Well, I was definitely some good entertainment for the kids that afternoon as I decided to do a header right off that snow blanket of a roof. You couldn’t have pictured it better, as out your kitchen window, they all saw a guy fall off the crown of the cabin into the snow head first.
I guess it must have looked pretty comical, as Jack and Skyler reminded me of my funny escapade, hours after I had finished shoveling that damn roof. One thing’s for certain, there was never a dull moment with me in the house. It took a good week for all that amount of snow to melt, but eventually life returned to normal.
It was now the spring of 1997 and tragedy had befallen my stepson’s much loved pet cockatiel, Maverick. Unfortunately Jack’s little friend had caught a cold from the damp winter we had, and it ended his life. It tore me apart to see that little guy, so distraught over the passing of his beloved friend. He ended up burying Maverick under a tree, near the house, and for a time thereafter, Jack would sit under that tree quite regularly after school.
There wasn’t much I could do to comfort his grief, so on weekends mostly, I would play in the river with Jack, we had out in the backyard. That seemed to console him, some but it was obvious that he truly missed his little buddy Maverick the most.
Skyler was completely wrapped up with her new buddy Shadow; as well they would even fish together in the stream quite a bit in those days. Taro had moved out into the garage, as Shadow seemed to be crowding his space. That’s where he spent most of his time in the day, however,we still brought him in at nights when we went to bed. Carol had let her good friend Dody know of Maverick’s passing, so she came up with a new pet Cockatiel for Jack. She had told Jack this one’s name was Apache, and at first, he seemed overjoyed with his new found friend. However, after about a month of trying to teach the bird all the tricks that Maverick had known, he had given up on Apache. Dody ended up taking him back, and Jack didn’t seemed to be so stressed out anymore.
In the month of May, I was keeping very busy with the usual Spring Tradeshows, at various arenas throughout Victoria. It was there you would find me with the “Cookware Gang“ of would be sales associates.” Usually, the group was led by our fearless leader JD, along with his gal Raelene, Shane and his girlfriend, Saul, my recruit Freda and some other of our new hires for cooks. We had a booth and table showcasing our shiny Cookware, plus of course that Food Processer. All of us would be wearing white colorful aprons with the Pacific Health Systems Logo on them and whatnot. JD would be reeling in the “would be customers” with free cole-slaw salads he had just made with the Food Processor. Mostly everyone that sampled the salad would put their name in the draw for a free food processor or whatever JD wanted to give away at the time. After the trade show had finished, we would call up the qualified leads that had the most pertinent information on the draw slips. I mean if they divulged their occupation, the number in their family they were cooking for as well as maybe their household income, then of course, we called them first. We would tell them they hadn’t won the food processor but had one a free dinner-show instead. It was a slam dunk, which mostly everyone said yes to that, and we would ask them to invite 2 other couples as well. Afterall JD knew that one out of every three couples were purchasing our cookware after the dinner show was over. We stayed busy for a good three to four months of putting on dinner shows, well after a trade show had ended in those days.
It was around the following month of April tragedy again visited our household, this time it was our dog Shadow!
Skyler had been walking her little buddy with her Mom to go out to get the latest mail. They were walking together by the side of the road when some guy had intentionally gone out of his lane to hit the dog with his van. He didn’t even stop and kept on-going, as it was quite obvious that he had some sort of deranged mind to do such a mindless act.
Nonetheless, the damage had been done, and little Shadow’s right back leg, hip as well as most of her back end had been shattered in many places. Shadow was still a six-month-old pup, when she got hit by the moron driving that vehicle and her injuries were going to be very expensive. When it happened, Carol and I certainly did not have the financial means to pay for Shadow’s operation to have her hip reconstructed. I knew we would have been forced to put Shadow down, but my Skyler pleaded with me with tears in her eyes to save Shadow that evening. What could I do, but try and find a way to financially pay for her dog’s operation? So I went to a source of income I knew would be able to help me and that was my boss and good friend JD Cantry.
I told him my dilemma; furthermore, I told him I would work it off in the sets of cookware I would sell, the coming months. JD was no dummy! It was a simple plain fact this young man knew that he could keep his number one cookware salesman working for him, for quite some time. All he had to was to lend me the money for Shadow’s operation because he knew he was getting paid back anyways.
So to save and prolong Skyler’s dog’s life, I put myself in the hole for around $2,000.00 and you’re probably saying to yourself “I would never do that” right. I would agree with you somewhat, but until a member of your family has to go through such an ordeal; I still say you would have done what I did. Just think about it, what would you do if your son or daughter came to you with tears in their eyes asking you to save their beloved pet?
GREAT BLOG ON PITBULLS, CHECK OUT THE OTHER SITE I MANAGE CALLED PITBULL TRUCKING
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