Pit Bull Notes from Seattle

I spent last week in Colorado on a family trip, a trip we make two times a year: once in the summer for Rocky Mountain sunshine and once in the winter for snowangels and snowboarding. 

We fly in to Denver and every time I look out the window onto the city, I think about the dogs and families affected by the pit bull ban in Denver.

From July 31, 1989 through April 21, 2004 and re-enacted since May 9, 2005: It is unlawful for any person to own, possess, keep, exercise control over, maintain, harbor, transport, or sell within the city any pit bull.

This ordinance also bans shelters and humane societies from harboring pit bulls, and forbids any U.S. resident from transporting a pit bull through Denver without a permit.

There are exceptions for dogs registered prior to 1990 but given its 2010, there aren’t any exceptions. 

When the ban in Denver was re-enacted in 2005, the city mailed letters to residents with registered pit bulls notifiying them they had 30 days to remove their dogs from the city. Some of the people moved outside the city limits. Some of the people re-homed their dogs outside the city. But hundreds of people had to surrender their dogs to animal control–good citizens that registered their beloved family pets. On July 29th, 2005, the Associated Press reported:  Since May, 380 dogs have been impounded and at least 260 destroyed.

Since the 2005 ban, I read several Denver blogs and in 2006, the following image was posted in the Westword Blog as an anonymous photo from the city’s animal shelter. A pile of dead pit bulls. This image travels with me everywhere I go. And when I go to Denver, I carry it with a heavy, angry heart.

So one of the things I do when I’m in Colorado, and outside the Denver city limits, is visit the Summit County Animal Shelter in Frisco.

There’s typically only one pit bull for every dozen dogs at the shelter. I took this photo of Bella last week. She’s listed as a pit bull-lab mix even though she doesn’t look like she has a lick a lab in her. But it’s no matter: She’s a beautiful girl that warmed my heart.

I imagine she’s adopted by someone who falls in love with the breed, becomes a fantastic advocate, and joins the growing number of Colorado residents that will overturn the pit bull ban in Denver for good.

A stretch, yes. But if we expect good things–from people, from dogs–seems like more good things will happen.

A year ago, on July 19th, two women were brutally attacked in my South Park neighborhood when a man climbed through their bathroom window while they slept. Theresa Butz died, and her partner survived. In the days that followed, we mourned the horrific tragedy, and we were beyond scared for our family and friends while the suspect was at large. 

On July 24th, police released two surveillance videos, each showing a man skulking around a dark alley in an unknown location with a brindle pit bull at his side. Given my radar for pit bulls in the neighborhood, I watched the videos dozens of times to see if I could identify the guy.

Within hours of the video postings, a Metro bus driver near Magnuson Park spotted the suspect walking with his brown-and-white pit bull, Endo, and called police. They swarmed the area, and Kalebu was arrested.

Here’s a photograph Greg Gilbert shot of Endo to include in a Seattle Times article about what would happen to him.

I remain haunted by what happened to these two lovely women that I never met but that lived blocks from my home. And this week, almost a year to the day, I received an update on Endo. He’s now a beloved family pet. I don’t know how he wasn’t also the victim of violence, how he wasn’t damaged. But I find some peace knowing he’s safe and sound.

La Tigre is also on my mind with the first days of summer in the 90s. During a drive-by last week, on first glance, we didn’t see her. As soon as I got excited about the chance she may no longer be chained up, she startled us when she jumped on top of a car to alarm bark our passing by. Looks like she’s chained to the inside of the carport right now.

There are also three new pit bulls in South Park. A used tire store opened about two months ago, and they’re relying on three pit bulls to guard the tires when they’re not open for business. Two males and a female. All in tact. There are now 3 dog houses, and they keep water and food bowls visible so folks like me don’t keep calling Animal Control. I’m thinking:  What if during a midnight mission I stacked all the tires on the outside of the fence and left the dogs inside with a giant sign that reads, “Pit bulls are not guard dogs.”  But maybe the dogs are enough for thieves to shuffle down to the other two used tire shops a block down the street.

There’s one more pit bull on my mind:  Tiny Gus-Gus. We agreed it’s time to foster another pit bull puppy so when I dropped by the shelter two weeks ago, I brought this little guy home with me.

He was found as a stray, only 4 weeks old, brought to the shelter by a woman who happened to cross his path. I really hope Tiny will grow up to be all the wonderful things pit bulls can be but I’m also realistic this is a less than ideal start. He should be with his litter. For now, we’re doing the best we can to give him the guidance on how to be a good dog. Here he is with Gigi. My grandmother, Ruby, was crazy about poodles. I’m crazy about pit bulls. And I wonder what Gigi’s breed of choice will be.

Last summer in July, the same month Anne died, there were two litters of pit bull puppies at the Seattle Animal Shelter. A total of fifteen puppies that spent the first ten weeks of their lives in the shelter. Puppies that were intially being held for animal cruelty cases. The shelter worked hard to get these dogs into foster care once they were legally cleared so that they could get as much socialization as possible to make up for a less than ideal start.

Some how I talked Miguel into bringing one of them home. She was tagged as Number 9 when I checked her out and as we drove her back to our South Park neighborhood, we agreed we should name her after a place.

And what better place to name her after than our local watering hole, Loretta’s. I snapped this photo of our foster puppy as we walked through their front door. Even though it’s No Dogs Allowed, we knew Amy would let us grab a drink and a burger out back by the Airstream and ping pong table. 

And if you look into the background of this photo, you’ll notice I captured another element of South Park. A local prostitute who frequents the sidewalk in front of Loretta’s.

I’d led a few Foster Orientation sessions at the Shelter but I was still rusty–Chaney was our last foster so it’d been about 4 years. I’d rolled up the rugs, had the crate ready, kong balls stuffed, and our resident dogs were safely put away. But I forgot the Nature’s Miracle.

Loretta was home the moment she arrived. Tail wagging-puppy pouncing, chasing bumble bees, eating shoestrings, digging holes.

We took introductions slowly with our two dogs. After a few days of crate-and-rotate, we donned them the Three Amigos. Here’s Loretta with Buffalo and Chaney.

Loretta was only with us a couple of weeks before being adopted–and yes, Miguel wanted to keep her.

It was back-to-the-basics goodness for me.

A reminder that the heart of rescue is sharing your home with an animal in need. A warm bed, a gentle hand, an easy time. It’s where many of us begin, where some of us get lost, and where so many animals need us to be.

Lorretta is now a year old and has turned into a beautiful pit bull with a fantastic, responsible owner. Here she is on the sidelines at a soccer game cheering on her favorite human.

The same day I unloaded the boxes I picked up from Gaye’s house, I started organzing the contents of Anne’s rescue work. There are twelve boxes of file folders.

Each manila file folder is labelled with a dog’s name and the date Anne first became aware of the dog. Sometimes the labels include the dog’s new adopted name, a euthanasia date, or an adoption date.

The files start in 1998 and some years, 2002 and 2003, have two boxes of files.

Anne’s record keeping was meticulous in the beginning. For every dog, I know where the dog came from, have a detailed description, and there’s almost always a photo in the file. I knew Anne worked with hundreds & hundreds of pit bulls but going through these files made her work very real to me on a different level. Her chicken scratch intake notes, her follow-up notes on dates and times she called vets, foster parents, prospective adopters.

Going through the files, I came across dogs that I knew their stories start-to-finish. And there are also dogs like Daisy that I only remembered had been adopted by a wonderful family. I learned Daisy fell off a cliff and died hiking in the mountains by reading her file.

Anne’s files in 2008 tell the story of a woman struggling to do rescue. Her notes are spotty, dog photos are few, vet bills are unpaid, and there are labels with ”outcome unknown.”

In addition to the files, there were three, black garbage bags neatly wrapping poster board displays Anne and her volunteers had created over the years. I unfolded each one and photographed them.

Their purpose was to educate and inspire. Anne used these boards at fundraising events, at public outreach booths, at Ideal Pet Stop.

The tri-fold boards had dog fur stuck to the edges and smelled like Anne. Cigarettes and perfume.  There was a poster board for the 2005 Pit Bull Project calendar photographed by Bev Sparks.

There was also a poster board for the 2007 calendar which also includes beautiful photography and a few dogs I recognize. 

And finally, one of the last poster boards in the set was of Anne’s house. Photos of her son and daughter and the dogs that were a part of their lives.

So many details. Anne’s cursive handwriting. Jots of this-n-that. Names and addresses of people who adopted dogs. Photo-after-photo of pit bulls, pit bull mixes, mutts with brindle coats. Vet bill-after-vet bill. Yahoo emails. PetFinder listings. Copies of Canine Good Citizen certificates. Business cards. Newspaper clippings. Magazine articles. And thank you letters for miles.

Here’s an excerpt from the parents of Sammy Snuggles written in 2001: Dear Anne, how can we thank you for the newest member of our family? Mr. Sammy Snuggles charged into our lives and showered us with kisses and goofiness. He talked us into buying a house with a yard so while we’re not as close by as we used to be, we thank you every day for saving this dog that our lives would simply not be complete without.

On a beautiful summer day in Seattle last year, I was drinking a margarita under the magnolia tree when I checked my phone for messages. One voicemail from Lorrie. There was a lot of crying and after replaying the message several times, I made sense of it: Lorrie’s finger was bitten off trying to break up a dog fight, and Anne Holte was found dead in her home curled up with Merlin.

My mind kicked in to remember: When was the last time I saw her, when was the last time I spoke to her on the phone, when was the last time we exchanged emails. It’d been 3 years since I’d seen Anne in person. It’d been 2 years since I’d spoken to her on the phone. And it’d been 6 months since we exchanged emails.

In our last email exchange, I’d reached out to tell her Louie was put to sleep for behavior issues and wasn’t sure how welcoming Anne would be. This was one of a handful of times we interacted since our falling out when I left Pit Bull Project in 2004. She was very warm and saddened to hear the news. We exchanged baby pictures. I sent her a photo of Gigi with Buffalo and Chaney, and she sent me a photo of her grandson with Merlin. To my surprise, she asked me to come visit her. I never did.

And two months later, she included me on a mass email asking for help to keep Pit Bull Project operating. I knew the Web site hosting was always on the verge of being shut-off because I continued to receive the warning notices for some reason. I also knew that Anne’s health was not good. I didn’t respond to her email.

Anne’s memorial service was the following Saturday, July 25th, in Columbia City.  While I didn’t recognize most of the people at the ceremony, I did recognize Chris and Kip. They recalled meeting me the first time they visited Ideal Pet Stop. Here they are in the 2006 Pit Bull Project calendar. They are one of hundreds of families Anne touched through her rescue work.

Gaye Davies, one of Anne’s closest friends, was on the original Pit Bull Project board, and I hadn’t seen her in years. There were many tears when she arrived with Merlin, Anne’s go-everywhere dog.

Turns out Gaye was storing a truckload of boxes of Anne’s dog rescue stuff, stuff Anne’s family didn’t know what to do with. Gaye asked me to take it, and I agreed. Seemed right for Pit Bull Project to come back to me so two weeks later I went to Gaye’s house for pick-up.

Gaye and I went through the boxes. From thank-you cards to dog collars to Pit Bull Project t-shirts to dog tags with Anne’s name and address, I felt blessed to go through her things. I packed my Outback full and drove off blowing kisses to Gaye.

Driving home with Pit Bull Project: Another beautiful summer day, the sunroof open, the smell of Anne (cigarette smoke, perfume, dogs) swarming all around me, and Fleetwood Mac. Hold me.

I’m holding on to you, Anne. You’re just around the corner. Lovin on all those pit bulls you’ve embraced and kissed squarely on the nose.

Since moving to South Park more than 3 years ago, I’ve kept a map of the pit bulls I watch. There are currently 11 pit bulls within a 1/2 mile of my house. I drive by. I walk by. I route my once-in-a-while run by. I keep a pulse. Some of these dogs are chained up. Some of these dogs are loose in backyards 24-7. Some of these dogs have had litters of puppies. One of these dogs has reportedly bitten someone. And some of the dogs I watch come-and-go.

In 2008, I realized I wanted to focus more on the pit bulls in my neighborhood so I stepped down from BullsEye Dog Rescue and started volunteering at the Seattle Animal Shelter. Many of the dogs at the shelter are pit bulls, and my work at the shelter has connected me to the dogs in my neighborhood in unexpected ways.

Loca was a pit bull two blocks from my house that Animal Control fought hard to help. When she was finally euthanized in 2008, her owners kept Chato (the red male) and one of Chato and Loca’s offspring, Puppy (also a red male).  The family that owned and bred these dogs were evicted from their home after a drive-by shooting and a Child Protective Services intervention in May that year. I worried about the whereabouts of the dogs and didn’t see them with the kids who still hung out in South Park.

Several months later, I arrived for a volunteer shift at the shelter, and another volunteer said to me, “There are two really scarey pit bulls that Animal Control brought in today–go check em out.”  I knew which kennels they were in because of their barks, and I didn’t make eye contact with the two dogs as I approached. They were separated, in side-by-side kennels. Two red male pit bulls, out-of-their-minds, scared, and pissed off. I read the officer’s intake notes hanging on the kennel doors as they barked right through me.

It was Chato and Puppy. Some time after their owner was evicted, Chato and Puppy were left at a relative’s house tied to a tree. The relative couldn’t take care of the dogs so when their owner didn’t come back as she’d promised, they called Animal Control to come pick them up. Chato and Puppy were euthanized three days later.

Part of me was very sad for these two dogs who didn’t get what they needed from people and part of me was quite relieved these two dogs weren’t out there, whereabouts unknown.

What Chato and Puppy weren’t, so many pit bulls that come to the shelter are: Pit bulls that, despite not getting what they need, continue to trust people with an against-all-odds spirit, an endurance to be a good dog when so many people in the world want them to be bad dogs.

Penny is one of those pit bulls. She’s currently available for adoption at the Seattle Animal Shelter. Check her out.

When I wrote about Loca, I mentioned there are several pit bulls in my South Park neighborhood that I worry about. La Tigre is one of these dogs, and she’s a walk-through-a-field away from my house.

When I first saw her in 2006 (the year we moved in), she was in the front yard with no fencing, tied to a tree log. The house she’s tied up in front of 24-7 is on a dead-end street with million dollar, panoramic views of the Seattle skyline.

That first time I saw her, she charged at me when I walked past, dragging the log just a few feet and stopping. Scared the bejillies outta me. We named her La Tigre because of her brindle coat and because she’s more like a wild animal than a pet. Miguel has chucked hot dogs at her over the years in hopes she’ll warm up to us but that hasn’t happened.

I call Animal Control several times a year to check on her, and there’s not much they can do because she doesn’t need immediate medical attention. They’ve warned the owners about the importance of fresh water. One time she had no water and one time her water was frozen.

I haven’t seen her tied to a log since 2006 but I’ve seen her: Tied to a tree. Tied up using a stake in the ground. Tied to a lawn mower. Tied to the bumper of a car. Tied to furniture in the carport. 

Here’s a photo of her dog house and the carport where they sometimes keep her. In this photo, she’s in the dog house.

And here’s the photo I snapped of her when she came out of the dog house that day. It was mid-winter, and she was wearing a tank top that read, “What chills?” Probably a bad English translation for “What gives?” (I thought, “Well, she chills–she’s freakin cold!). My hands were shaking because I was scared someone would see me photographing her. 

In the foreground are bags of garbage she tore into and rummaged through for days. In the background is a mattress her owners dumped in the front yard.

During a late-night drive-by with my friend Stefaney a fews weeks later, we discovered La Tigre had dug a hole in the mattress and was sleeping in it. It was quite a sight seeing her come barking up-and-out of that mattress.

One Fall Sunday in 2007, we were out for a walk with Gigi who was riding in the baby backpack, and we did our usual walk-by to see how La Tigre was doing. As we walked back through the field towards our house, we came across 4 teenagers we’d never met drinking beer under a tree. They asked us if we’d been to church and were put off when we said no. I replied, “Next time you’re at church though, will you pray for that dog over there living in garbage?”

One of the kids jumped forward and said, “That’s my dog, and you’re the one that’s been calling Animal Control.” Miguel stood in between us as I said, “It’s not me but I can see why someone’s calling.” There were two girls with the two guys, and they got very nervous as the kid asked if we wanted to meet the dog. Miguel said, “We’d love to meet her if she’s friendly.” The kid bawked, “She’d eat you up.” We backed out of the confrontation, saying as we walked off, “Just give her some love, bring her inside, that’s all.”

I’ve learned from Animal Control reports that her name is “China”, that she’s been chained up for five years, and that I’m not the only neighbor that calls. In my mind, she’s the typical pit bull people have wrongly tied up as guard dogs. While I don’t believe any animal should be tied up 24-7 without exercise and socialization, pit bulls are not a guardian breed and are highly social dogs that thrive from human interaction. La Tigre is the pit bull that makes newspaper headlines–a neglected, frustrated dog that’s gone dark.

I can’t save her so I keep her front-of-mind. Yesterday was Valentine’s Day so I walked by to chuck some hot dogs at her. My aim was off, and the hot dogs fell well beyond the length of her chain. 

In 2007, I was the Pit Bull co-breed representative for Seattle Purebred Rescue (SPDR) and one of my responsibilities was documenting how many pit bulls were handled by local shelters. I compiled reports from several shelter checkers who either walked the rows or called the phone lines of Seattle shelters.

In 2007, we estimated there were 1,304 pit bulls across 8 local shelters. One of the shelters missed the first quarter of reporting and this doesn’t include dogs in quarantine. 

The Tacoma Humane Society is one of those shelters, and they handled the largest percentage accounting for 483 pit bulls that year. Tacoma is notorious for their pit bull euthanasia policy. There are rare exceptions (including a new pilot adoption program with BullsEye Dog Rescue) but overall, without regard for health or temperament, the shelter has euthanized all pit bulls since 1987.

The shelter reports looked something like this: Shelter ID, Sex, Age, Neutered, Origin, Name (unknown most of the time), and sometimes the shelter checker would include comments that I would include in my report. Here are a few of the comments from 2007:

• Female still lactating. No sign of pups.
• Buddy is 10 years old.
• 3 of 6 came in together. Owner in jail.
• Male being held for cruelty case.
• 3 females confiscated for cruelty.
• Outcome: Pit bull puppy was stolen from shelter.
  • And worth noting: The dog that was stolen from the shelter showed up at the same shelter 2 years later.

I’m looking back at SPDR’s other breed counts for 2007. German Sheperds accounted for 182 dogs with Labrador Retrievers as the next most common pure breed at 177. Golden Retrievers (145) were the 6th most common breed coming in with higher counts than Rottweilers in 2007.

Pit bulls top the charts of breeds handled for every shelter in Seattle since 2001. In 2007:  67% were under 2 years old. Only 15% were neutered. 90% were strays. 

Most of the pit bulls came in without a name, without a trace of a human to call their very own.

One day in 2007, a West Seattle Vet reached out to BullsEye about a pit bull they’d been seeing for years as a patient. They explained the family who owned him recently had a baby and that the dog’s separation anxiety was too much for them to handle. The vet needed help finding this dog a new home, and I agreed to go meet him.

Here’s the photo I took for the calendar. He’s about a year old in this picture. At 10 weeks old, Tye’s first owners took him in the backyard and cut off both his ears–another home crop job like Proud Baby’s. Tye’s ears wouldn’t stop bleeding so they took him to the vet. The vet wouldn’t give the dog back to them and released him to Pit Bull Project.

In November 2007, Cheryl’s best friend found two puppies in a parking lot as the sun was rising. She was out walking her dog when she spotted two creatures huddled together–she thought they were baby possums, lost. The puppies were so scared she was certain they hadn’t moved since someone set them on the wet pavement.  

I don’t know what makes it possible for someone to leave two scared, 6-week old puppies in an empty, dark parking lot in blustery weather and drive off. Is it faith? Faith that a good samaritan will find them, love them, and raise them to be good family pets. Is it desperation? Desperate to get rid of something that depends on you for life–because you already have too much that depends on you. Is it cruelty? A complete disregard for life.

A vet told these nice women they were pit bulls and referred them to BullsEye for help. I went to meet the two puppies with my friend, Stefaney.  

Here’s Elsie. She was a mess. Note her front paws lay almost flat. This is due to poor nutrition and lack of exercise. She also had weak, back hips so she didn’t stand very much, and she sat with her hips settled awkwardly to the left. She’s also wall-eyed like a fish and has an under bite that only mothers love. We tested her hearing given her white coat and pink skin. Seemed fine. We introduced her to Stefaney’s pit bull, Maggie, and she was scared instead of curious even though Maggie completely ignored her.
 
Dazie looked and acted more healthy overall but her brindle coloring disguised some of the same issues. We visited for two hours teaching Cheryl as much as we could about the breed and caring for puppies that had a poor start. She, like most people, was scared of pit bulls because she only knew what she saw on TV and heard in the news. She asked really good questioned and listened closely.

She was willing to foster if we agreed to find them a home–but she couldn’t keep them because she travelled for work and had cats. But I knew it’d be next-to-impossible to find them homes, and I thought of Fagen. Ultimately, I didn’t think it was responsible to find them homes given their health issues.

Cheryl got quiet when we recommended she put them to sleep. We asked her to think about the bigger picture: Why does the world need two more backyard bred pit bulls?

This was the last photo I took during our visit. Cheryl had a big decision to make, and I can see her thinking about that decision in this photo.

It’s now 2 years later, and I sent Cheryl an email a few weeks ago to check-in. I fully expected Cheryl to be without the girls and to hear their sad outcomes.

To my surprise, Elsie and Dazie are still with Cheryl and doing quite well despite some of the problems we predicted. So I’ve been asking myself about the bigger picture.

Because even if the world doesn’t need these two puppies, Cheryl does. I don’t know if they give her purpose or if it’s the promise of unconditional love. I do know that Cheryl is led by her heart, caring for these dogs that someone else just couldn’t care for. And for me, that makes the world a more hopeful place to be.

In 2006, friends approached us at a baby shower and said, “We’re breaking up so you’re buying our house.” We weren’t planning to buy a house but they convinced us with fish tacos and Sangria so we sprung for the modest house in South Park, Seattle’s last affordable neighborhood.

South Park was a farming community in the early 1900s, providing fruits and vegetables to downtown’s Pike Place Market. In the 20s, Boeing moved in next door to build airplanes, and in the 50s, South Park was divided into residential and industrial land zones. The Duwamish River that runs through the neighborhood quickly became polluted and in 2001, this part of the river became a Super Fund site.

When we moved into our home in 2006, I knew South Park was a blue collar neighborhood that also included activists, artists, and the best Mexican food in Seattle. 

What I didn’t know was the number of pit bulls I would come to worry about.

A few months after moving in, Miguel was taking out the garbage when he started shouting frantically over the fence, “Throw me the dog mace. Quick. Now!”  When I jumped onto a chair to toss him the mace, I was surprised to see a white pit bull with a black spot on her eye lunging at him.

A kid about 6-years old distracted her away, and Miguel chased after the kid to say, “Hey, here’s a leash if you need it.”  The kid ignored Miguel. As soon as they’d appeared, they were gone.

It turned out this pit bull named “Loca” lived just around the corner. She’d gotten loose. She was usually tied to a tree on a lot with an empty house, and she shared her 6-foot diameter space with Chato, a male pit bull that had full run of the yard.

Their owners lived in the house next door.

Chato fared better because he wasn’t chained 24-7 and because he got more human interaction. Sometimes I’d even see his owners taking him for a walk.

Loca was always chained up.

I walked and drove past the lot daily to check on her. Loca tossed her dog bowls. She knocked her dog house on its side and stood on top of it. She dug holes. She chased her tail. She stared into the sky. She chewed through ropes, chains, and jumped fences to escape. She did everything she could to fight against her situation, her helplessness.

I first called Animal Control to do a welfare check as the weather turned cold that year. She didn’t need medical attention so Animal Control couldn’t do much. They could only advise the owners to make sure she had water and to keep her shelter upright.

That winter was tough. It rained like hell. When the temperature dropped, I called Animal Control. When the storms howled, I didn’t sleep. I’d look out the kitchen window for hours, watching the trees and sheets of rain, heart breaking because I knew she was miserable. I knew she was suffering.

This wasn’t a dog I could steal or try to help directly. I couldn’t get access to her because she was chained up in the center of the backyard. I couldn’t even chuck a hot dog or dog bone to her from that distance. My best bet was to hound Animal Control because I knew her health would degrade to the point of them being able to do something.

Loca made it through winter and in the spring, my heart sank when I realized she was pregnant. Miguel took every opportunity to chat up the kids that owned her when he could. He found out she had nine puppies. They were excited to sell the puppies and were planning to keep a few.

I met two of the puppies one day when the kids were out walking them with Chato. Oh, what cute puppies!  How old? As I tried to pet the 6-week old pups, they squared off with me and barked, keeping their distance. Not at all what I’d expect from puppies.

About two weeks later, as I was getting into my car for the morning commute, I saw an off-leash pit bull roaming the field next to our house. I started to track this dog in my car but when I drove past Chato and Loca, I spotted two of their puppies–they’d slipped the fence and were two yards down.

I saw an opportunity and took it. I pulled over, lured the dogs with treats, bundled them into my arms, and drove off. My legs were shaking so badly I almost tapped the gas peddle instead of the brakes at the first street light.

I took them to work and because I couldn’t take the puppies back to our house, I’d planned to overnight them with a friend. But that day in the parking garage, as I was taking them out for a potty break, we came across a black lab puppy about their same age. The two pit bull puppies went after the lab with a mission to kill it. They weren’t sound.

Alarmed but clear-minded, I knew the right thing to do. As hard as it was to decide to put down two cute puppies, I knew these two dogs were not bred for good health or temperament. I also knew the world would not be worse off without two more pit bulls.

Dr. Heino at Rainier Valley Vet didn’t want to put them down but when the puppies went after another dog in their care, he agreed it was ultimately the best decision.

Spring turned to fall, and fall turned to winter. But Loca didn’t have another winter in her. Animal Control continued to do welfare checks, and eventually her health warranted immediate medical attention in December of 2007.  An infection in her uterus.

Here are some of the photos they took of her. She was euthanized in early 2008.

I cry for Loca now as I did on many nights. It was the people who made her crazy, the people who failed to do right by her, the people who’ve forgotten her.

There’s a higher bar for pit bulls. I think back to walking our pit bull, Chaney, in Madison Park–a wealthy Seattle neighborhood we rented a house in for several years–and how often neighbors crossed the street at the sight of us. Another time I was in front of the neighborhood grocery with Chaney on leash waiting for Miguel to pick up milk and bread. An offleash, yellow lab ran up on us. The owner scolded me when I had to body block Chaney from reacting and told me to keep my dog under control. 

Another time I was running with both dogs on leash, rounded a corner, and a startled man jumped out of the way yelling, “Get your pit bulls away from me!” My dogs hadn’t noticed him til he started yelling at us.

Buffalo’s best friend is a Golden Retriever named Conner. Conner and Buffalo have the exact same temperament: confident, hyper, goofy, and nutty about people. To me, they’re the same dog. To many others, Buffalo is an unpredictable, scarey animal, and Conner is a sweetheart who just needs to work on his manners. Here are the two of them playing rough-and-tumble alongside us goofing off in the woods.

This brings me to two BullsEye dogs from 2006: Peanut and Clyde.

Peanut came to BullsEye via a Veterinary Hospital up north. She was found in a dumpster. Zipped up in a baseball bat bag. A good samaritan walking down the alley heard whimpering. Peanut’s story made the News, and she was lucky to survive with only a broken leg. She was about a year old when this happened.

 Overall she was a sweet girl but she was very reactive and scared in certain situations. Her triggers included men, loud noises, and unpredictable movement like bikes and skateboards.
While we loved this little girl, we couldn’t responsibly adopt her. Life is full of triggers, and we didn’t want her to live a life in fear. She didn’t meet the bar so we put her to sleep.

Meet Clyde. He lived his first few years chained up in a yard, was picked up as a stray, and landed at the Camano Island Animal Shelter. We never figured out where he came from but we could tell from his muscle development, teeth, and overall health on intake that he was a yard dog. Staff adored this squatty, hugalicious guy from the start so they contacted BullsEye–and we adored him too. Well, I mostly adored him. He chewed up the back of my car but I got over it.

Clyde’s a charmer–he’s one of those dogs that melts your heart. He joined us at the rescue booth at the AKC show that year, and people lined up to meet him. It wasn’t long before he was adopted by a wonderful family that includes small kids. Clyde has appeared in numerous rescue calendars to raise money to help other pit bulls. He’s a star.

It’s tough to be a pit bull right now and that’s why our pit bulls have to be perfect. We can’t rescue every pit bull that deserves a chance, dogs like Peanut who are afraid because of what people did to them. Because as justifiable as it might be to be scared, a reaction would be another news headline about a vicous pit bull.

So we pass the bar over-and-over and hope that some day our pit bulls can be just dogs.

On MLK Day, just a few months after we got hitched on the beach in Mexico, we found out we had a bun in the oven. I’m 9 months pregnant in the photo below. While we were excited about welcoming another human being into our family, people started asking us what we were going to do with the dogs. Hunh?

We prided ourselves on being responsible pit bull owners and now we found ourselves in a position of having to defend Buffalo and Chaney even more. Since the baby hadn’t arrived yet, folks were quick to ask, “But how do you know your dogs won’t hurt the baby?”

Our family was scared. You’ll note they all live on the east coast, and no one in our family had actually met our dogs yet. My dad argued pit bulls are unpredictable killing machines. Just read the papers, right? No matter how many stats, quotes, research we cited, family members would reply, “Yeah, but we just don’t want it to be our baby girl.”

Our strategy was mailing our family copies of Pit Bulls for Dummies. My mom read every page and asked really good questions: What’s the difference between dog agression and people agression? How will the dogs know the baby’s not another dog? This was the kind of conversation I was happy to have. But most of the conversations–even with friends that loved our dogs–were irrational. But they taught me about fear and ultimately I learned a lot more about dogs as a result.

The hardest part is shrugging off the insinuations we’re not good parents because we own pit bulls. I imagine I’ll get asked this question less as Gigi gets older. But just last week, a co-worker asked–and this wasn’t the first time I’d been asked this punch-in-the-gut question: ”Aren’t you afraid they’ll drag her down the street and kill her?” 

No. I’m not afraid of my dogs. And pit bulls are just dogs. And we’re good dog owners that happen to have pit bulls as our beloved family pets. And we’re not perfect, but we’re pretty good parents that love our daughter to pieces.

Gigi is just a few weeks old in this photo with Buffalo Sky. If you wanna see a family album of Gigi with our dogs, click here.

I’ve broken most of the rules I’ve made for myself. I swore I’d never get a tattoo, and I did that when I was 29. I swore I’d never get married. I also swore I’d never own more than one pit bull at a time. I broke these two rules in 2004.

I started photographing BullsEye families with plans of doing a fundraising calendar project and met Chaney during one of the photo shoots.

He was one of the few dogs Diane Jessup pulled from the Olympia Shelter and released to BullsEye. You’ll recall Buffalo Sky also came to me by way of Diane.

His name was Chainsaw when he was surrendered to the shelter because he wasn’t potty trained. I thought, atleast they were keeping him inside. Despite his name, he was a gentle dog with a shy but trusting spirit. And he was a dog that by no fault of his own was moved between too many foster homes and adopters–10 different households in his first year. Here’s a photograph one of his foster families took of him.

The first time he was adopted, it was by a young guy who passed BullsEye’s rigorous screening process. We were shocked weeks later when we got a call that he was found in a cow pasture basking in the sun. And we were more shocked when the guy that had adopted him didn’t even know he’d gone missing. He came back to BullsEye.

The second time he was adopted, it was by a family with two, pre-teen kids. The dad wanted a pit bull because his brother had a pit bull that wiped her feet before she came in the house. This was the family I met when I went to photograph life with Chaney.

When I arrived, the mom and kids were bathing Chaney outside in a big, aluminum tub. He didn’t like it much but he closed his eyes and counted the minutes. Then he played keepaway with the kids as he ran the perimeter of their perfectly landscaped backyard.

As I took photos, I asked questions to get a feel for family life. I learned they were bathing him twice a week because the dad thought he smelled. I explained this wasn’t good for his coat and asked if they’d had his ears checked. No, they responded, but they were thinking of taking him in for a hurt leg–he’d been limping for weeks. Hunh, okay.

Given it was spring, the weather was increasingly nice so the mom said they spent as much time as possible outside with Chaney–there were only a few rooms in the house he was allowed in. When I went in for a glass of water, much of the house had white carpets and furnishings. The couches and chairs were covered in clear, plastic covers.

I left that day with a butterfly of doubt but I didn’t expect things to go sideways. The mom called us several weeks later and said we had to come get Chaney because he’d dug a hole in the yard. She was very upset and was clearly being directed to do something about that dog. We discovered they were leaving him outside in the backyard most of the time because he was getting the house dirty. Turns out Chaney didn’t know how to wipe his feet before entering the house.

We agreed to go get him and then the mom called back and said they worked it out and wanted to keep him. Lorrie and Kirstan swooped in. While Lorrie rang the doorbell, Kirstan went in the backyard, leashed up Chaney, and packed him safely in the car.

It was right to pull him. He came back to BullsEye with a blunt edge cut on his nose. He still wears the scar.
I’d never fostered an adult pit bull so I was wary but willing to give it a try. Buffalo and Chaney were play bows, wiggle butts, and snuggle hugs from day one. Miguel wanted to keep every foster dog so it was no surprise he wanted to keep Chaney–even with his quarky, scaredy cat behavior. It took me a month to break my two-pit bull rule–I caved on the way to a meet-and-greet with a potential adopter in Canada.

And I caved on my marriage rule. Two months after adopting Chaney, Miguel and I were married on the beach in Mexico. Love’s a good reason to break rules.

As BullsEye Dog Rescue got off the ground, we wanted to do more with our own pit bulls. After Buffalo Sky earned her Canine Good Citizen with ease, I signed us up to become a certified pet therapy team through Delta Society.

I drove Buffalo north about an hour of Seattle every Saturday for an 8-week training class with Becky Bishop. Becky didn’t like pit bulls much. When I mentioned I’d volunteered with Pit Bull Project, she said, “Isn’t every pit bull a project?”

I ignored her comment, and she agreed to let us attend the first class to see how it’d go. Our classmates included: One old, fat beagle with a crooked grin. An unneutered Standard Poodle dressed for Gay Pride. A Yellow Lab like the ones you see in LL Bean catalogs. A chocolate lab. Two Golden Retrievers. And a mutt from a local shelter.

Turns out the Poodle had it out for Buffalo and went after her twice during class. Buffalo ignored him. So Becky kicked the Poodle out of class and explained, “Of all the dogs your dog could pick a fight with, the Pit Bull is not the dog to choose.” 

By the time we had a few classes under our belt, Becky was a Buffalo fan. I don’t know that she ever became a pit bull fan but she was as proud as I was when we passed our Animal Assisted Therapy Dog Test. And she didn’t ding me for slathering my hands in hot dog juice. This is the photo that was taken for our team badge.

Not long after, Lorrie and I were invited to Beacon Hill Elementary to meet with 1st Graders about animal shelters. Lorrie brought Gretel, who is also a Canine Good Citizen, and she spoke with the kids about why there are animals that don’t have homes and what to do if you see a stray or injured animal. We were amazed at how many kids asked with wide, I-wanna-look-but-I’m-scared-to-touch eyes, “Is that a pit bull?” It was like we had an exotic animal on leash from the zoo.

Here’s Gretel being such a good canine citizen that day at school. 

Not only did we do more with our own dogs, BullsEye helps owners do more positive and responsible things with their pit bulls. And at BullsEye’s Pit Bulls on Parade event this past summer, owners got to try agility courses, weight pull, and disc diving.

54 pit bulls earned their Canine Good Citizens that day. Now that’s a headline I’d love to see writ large in neon lights.

My last board meeting with Pit Bull Project included a new face, Lorrie Kalmbach-Ehlers. Anne was hoping Lorrie would be my replacement, and while I expected the meeting to be about transition, Anne wanted to re-hash why I was leaving. She sternly read my resignation letter aloud even though all the existing board members had already read it. It was a punishing conversation, and it’s one that suprisingly led to a really good thing.

As it turned out, Lorrie shared my concerns about Pit Bull Project and agreed with the recommendations I’d been making. After that night, we set out to create a new pit bull rescue focused on education and our own guiding principles.

With the help of Relaena and Kirstan, Lorrie and I founded BullsEye Dog Rescue in 2004. Our mission focused on public education, support for pit bull owners, and partnerships with other rescue organizations and shelters throughout the Puget Sound region. And we committed to not taking on more dogs than we could responsibly adopt. 

Meet Sirus, the first BullsEye dog. He typifies the pit bulls we wanted to help. Lorrie pulled him from Metro Animal Services in Puyallup when he was about a year old because he has a rock solid temperament.  

What wasn’t typical about this adoption was Alisha. She was only 19 when she adopted Sirus. She was a manager at Hotel Monaco. She had her own apartment and approval from her landlord to adopt a pit bull. She’d done her breed research. Sirus remains Alisha’s beloved family pet–and her family now includes two small children.

Alisha and Sirus, you make us proud.

If you want to meet more BullsEye dogs, check out Becky Meig’s beautiful photos on Flickr:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/28666245@N06/sets/

Pit Bull Project became the go-to rescue organization in Washington state. When a story about a pit bull made the headlines, reporters contacted Anne for comments. People as far as Texas and Georgia called Anne about pit bulls they found as strays. Area shelters released dozens of pit bulls to her. Pit Bull Project calendars, stickers, and t-shirts cropped up around town.

Anne kept meticulous notes about every phone call, every pit bull she met, and every news article. In 2004, Anne adopted 72 pit bulls and was contacted about 1,210 pit bulls.  

It was this year doing rescue with Anne that I came to deeply understand there are way more good pit bulls than there are good, responsible homes.

And the impact on Pit Bull Project was clear: Dogs waited longer for homes–the number of dogs that waited a year to be adopted tripled. Anne needed more foster homes so she started placing more than one dog in the same foster home at a time. In an effort to adopt more dogs, she began adopting 2nd pit bulls into homes she’d previously adopted to. The bar for pit bull expertise rose faster than most of these average dog owners could manage. Dog fights and euthanasia increased sharply.

This photograph is from a Seattle P-I article about the pit bull population. And for me, this photograph represents the vicious cycle of having way more pit bulls than we could responsibly find homes for. Puppies were in steady supply and the more puppies we took in, the longer it took for adult dogs like Angel to be adopted.

Anne and I heavily debated ways to get the rescue under control. Anne shot down every idea I had: 

• Don’t do puppies and focus on adult pit bulls because they’re the toughest to adopt.
• Only support 10-15 dogs in the program at a time.
• Don’t place 2nd pit bulls into foster or adoptive homes until the 1st pit bull was at least 3 years of age.
• Direct owner surrenders to their local animal shelter resources.

We were off track and had lost sight of our mission. But Anne didn’t agree. So in January, 2004 I resigned from the board of Pit Bull Project and that left a deep divide between us.

Miguel and I made a trip to Portland for a weekend getaway, and we crossed paths with Mary Anne and Fagen at their home. You’ll remember I took Fagen from a Seattle backyard when she was a few weeks old. It had been almost 2 years since she adopted Fagen from Pit Bull Project.

Mary Anne’s dedication to Fagen was heartwarming…and heartwrenching.

During our visit, we learned how well and how much Mary Anne managed this wonderful dog that was every bit a reflection of her backyard breeding history.

Her knees were bad, and Mary Anne spent thousands of dollars having them fixed. She had skin allergies so Mary Anne fed her a raw, homemade diet. Fagen was increasingly dog aggressive, and Mary Anne consulted numerous expert dog trainers. Her separation anxiety was managed with hours of daily exercise–which wasn’t good for her bad knees. Their backyard was full of kongs, tennis balls, and rope swings, and Mary Anne was excellent at re-directing Fagen away from people and dogs walking past their city fence line. Fagen had also became quite protective of Mary Anne as she matured. She gracefully coached Miguel on approaching and interacting with her throughout the afternoon.

Fagen was now a dog that had we temped her as an adult pit bull, she would have failed. And I still wonder if we failed Mary Anne because we knew Fagen would be a tough dog even when she was a puppy…

I have so much respect for Mary Anne’s fight to do everything right by Fagen. But it couldn’t change the fact that Fagen was brought into this world by people who didn’t care at all about health or temperament.

Mary Anne put Fagen to sleep a year after I took these photos because her health issues continued and her aggressive behavior escalated. This was the kindest thing she could for this creature she’d poured her heart and soul into.

I hold onto these two images of Fagen. Reminders of a human’s unconditional love of a pit bull. A reminder that it was only Mary Anne who would give Fagen her very own chair right next to her.

I imagined I’d be one of those people that grew old with a house full of pets and without a human to share life with. While I think Kurt Vonnegut is a jerk–and I spent a day with him in my 20s so I can say that–I agree with him: The more people I meet, the more I like my dog.

Nevertheless, I posted a personal ad in The Stranger, and the ad concluded with: And you must be comfortable with dogs, lots of dogs. My profile picture was a photograph of me with Buffalo Sky stretched out across my desk at work. 

We both caught someone’s fancy. I met Miguel for the first time at Three Dog Bakery–I was smart enough not to meet strangers in bars so I invited him down to the Pit Bull Project booth one Saturday in 2003. It’s a sugery sweet story–it was Valentine’s Day weekend.

He asked good questions about pit bulls and spent the afternoon meeting dogs and listening to conversations. By the end of that first date, he was answering tourist’s questions about the breed. It wasn’t long before Miguel was hooked on pit bulls.

And it was only a matter of weeks for Buffalo Sky to be hooked on him. This photograph was taken about 2 months later:  She was his dog.

 
We shacked up, and our life included fostering pit bull puppies–every one of which Miguel has wanted to keep. Here’s Blue, Miguel’s first foster.  

And this photograph was taken this past September at Pit Bulls on Parade, an event organized by BullsEye Dog Rescue.  Buffalo and Miguel are an impressive frisbee demo team–not bad for an 7-year old dog.

Here’s another action shot Becky Meigs took at the event:

Anne phoned me one day very excited. She reported the dog for me just joined Pit Bull Project: a four-month old female with a baked potato brown spot on her back from Diane Jessup. The dog’s name was Diane, and we joked it was a sign Diane was tired of naming dogs.

Diane is someone we look up to as a rock star in the pit bull world. She’s a nationally-respected pit bull advocate who lives in Olympia, and she worked tirelessly for Thurston County Animal Control. She also wrote two must-read books, The Working Pit Bull and The Dog Who Spoke with Gods, and is frequently quoted as an expert.  

I don’t know how Diane and Anne met. I do know they respected each other because pit bulls were more than just their passion. Pit bulls were their lives. 

I had a reluctant heart because of Tupelo Brown but I agreed to give *Diane* a trial run. I’m not clear where she came from. I remember something about her being smuggled out of a fighting ring in New York…Diane wanted to train her for schutzhund because of her drive but she chipped her front, right shoulder during training.

Here she is with Spatula, the Jack Russell I co-parented with an Ex. I re-named her Buffalo Sky. In my mind, a buffalo sky is a Montana skyline with fluffy white clouds against deep blue. But I think I made it up.

Over the years, I’ve come to describe Buffalo as being more of a working dog than a family pet. And remembering her early days with Diane Jessup, that’s no surprise.

Buffalo has attended countless public events with me, and we’re a Delta-certified Animal Assisted Therapy Dog team. She’s a frisbee daredevil, an acrobatic tree climber, and races snowboarders down mountains. She’s also a knucklehead that still jumps on people when they come visit and will lick you head-to-toe faster than you can say spaghetti pants.

Here we are at Three Dog Bakery one weekend.

Sweet Georgia Brown also came to us one of the usual ways: A kid brought her home one day to keep, and the parents said, “No way.”  She was a tubby, brindle puppy with classic pit bull markings. And she was snuggly! Instead of being go-go-go, she was a couch potato. Here she is with Dave and Relaena at Three Dog Bakery.

The Bakery is no longer across the street from Pike Place Market but for a couple of years, it was a place we set up a booth to raise money for pit bulls and to educate people about the breed.

This was one of the first Saturdays we were there selling calendars and chatting up tourists from the cruise ships.

A really tall guy walked in and started talking to me about Sweet Georgia Brown. He explained he had two pit bulls at home and that one his favorite restaurants was called Sweet Georgia Brown’s. I noticed people crowding around a bit, and when I dug into my backpack to give him a card, Dave explained he was Desmond Mason, a Sonics player.

He was really interested in adopting her but wanted to take it slow–he scored bonus points with us because of it. We immediately had ideas about how Desmond could help us do some education. We envisioned PSAs, half-time demos with pit bulls, posters about spay-neuter, a public figure that could really change the way people think.

We were planning an overnight with her to see how things went with his two dogs but it fell through. Desmond had a friend taking care of his pit bulls while he was travelling, and the friend fed the two dogs in the same kennel. A dog fight broke out that rattled everyone.  After several phone conversations, Desmond agreed it was too risky and that it was more important to get his two dogs back on track. 

We found this little girl a nice home, and while I don’t know exactly where she is now, I’m confident she’s a beloved family pet.

Nine 2-week old puppies were found in a motel room in Auburn in 2002. The motel manager found Anne like a lot of folks did–simply word of mouth. We set up a play pen at Ideal Pet Stop, and many volunteers helped feed, clean, and care for these pups whose eyes weren’t even opened yet.

Anne watched them round the clock. Bottle feeding, eye wiping, changing linens, and introducing them to every person to walk through the pet store door. Our goal was 100 people a week.

The puppies made us happy. Even though they didn’t have an ideal start, we believed we could make up for every minute they were away from their mom and for every minute they were left completely alone in that motel room. It was so fun to name them, try to remember who-was -who, and guess which ones would be goofy, laid back, and spazzy.

One of the puppies had a beautiful, brown coat with a silvery-blue tint. He was the bruiser of the litter, and Anne took a shine to him. Here she is with the puppy she named Silk. 

We all had our favorites, and I fell involve with a brindle female so it was time to move. It was the first time as a renter I had to ask a landlord if I could have a pit bull: Len said as long as I kept the grass mowed and paid the rent on time, he didn’t care if I had elephants as pets. I loved Len for that.

And the house was just a mile from the pet store so now I was in the neighborhood.

I named her Tupelo–bonus points if you can guess why–and I didn’t have her very long. I took her to Rainier Valley Vet to have her spayed when she was 4 months old, and they accidentally gave her too much anesthesia. Her heart stopped.

Anne called me at work. She couldn’t even say the words. All she could get out was, “MaggieP’s on her way to pick you up.”  MaggieP and I went down to the vet to say goodbye. I drowned poor Tupie in tears.

I thought it was ironic at the time: I tried to help pit bulls and when I finally got one of my very own, she was taken away. It seemed unfair–even though I don’t really believe in fair. This was the last photograph I took of her. Notice Lindel, my orange tabby, sitting in the background.

Remember I started collecting the pieces with MaggieP? A year or more had passed since I walked into her neighbor’s backyard. And like me, MaggieP spent Saturdays at Ideal Pet Stop walking dogs, washing dogs, and playing with as many pit bulls as she could. I took this photo of her one Saturday.

And like me, MaggieP really wanted to adopt a pit bull for her very own so she moved away from the house where she’d been watching over the neighbor’s dogs.

And about the same time that she bought a house in 2002, she fell in love with Baby, a 2-year old, squatty, hunka-hunka, red-and-white pit bull that came to Anne as an owner surrender. 

This little girl was shy when she first arrived but MaggieP brought her back to life. You’ll note her previous owner used scissors to crop her ears.

A few weeks ago, MaggieP reported: At the tender age of nine, she climbed up a 15-foot rock climbing wall at Camp Long because she wanted to do it with me.

You make us proud, Proud Baby.

I was still photographing families Anne had adopted pit bulls to, and we decided that instead of a photo exhibit we’d do a fundraising calendar. We agreed this was the perfect way to touch a lot more people–and a great way to launch Pit Bull Project as a new rescue organization.

This photograph of Anne’s son, Raphael, was taken at Ideal Pet Stop. The 5-month old, blue brindle is Merlin, the only pit bull that became one of Anne’s dog–he was her go-everywhere dog. 

This photo was included in the calendar that raised money to care for and find homes for many Seattle pit bulls. The picture was also included in the South Seattle Star.

The 2003 Pit Bull Project calendar was the first of 5 calendars. Here it is scanned in from the one remaining copy I have: http://www.pitbullnotes.com/?page_id=360

One day when I was Ideal Pet Stop visiting Anne, this wedding photo came in the mail. She received photographs like this with letters of gratitude, us-now letters, holiday best wishes.

I love this photo as much as I did then–about 7 years ago. I don’t know the people or the dog but I’m moved by the fact they included their pit bull in their wedding photo. I love these people who kneeled down to be right next to their dog without worrying the gown would get dity. The dog is also dressed to the nines to match the bride and groom. And simply put: They look happy and proud. I was so struck by the photo that Anne gave it to me.

When she mentioned the pit bull above was a mix, it sparked a conversation about how she wished she had more control of doing pit bull rescue the way she wanted. She was the breed representative for SPDR and because it was a pure breed rescue, they frowned upon Anne when she worked with mixes.

She talked about other ways she was constrained by SPDR and noted her relationship with the board was tenuous at best. My take was Anne had outgrown their organization–too much paperwork, too much process, and not enough influence. From phone inquiries to owner listings  to adoptions, Anne was handling about 900 pit bulls a year. The Rottweiler breed representative was a distant second, handling about 300 dogs a year. The Jack Russell breed representative handled 33 dogs a year. For Anne, it was a full-time job.

So that day I took the reigns on figuring out  how to create a non-profit so she could break away from SPDR and do rescue the way she wanted. I went to Barnes and Noble and bought a how-to book.

Here’s another photo Anne gave me. It’s a high school senior portrait that reminds me rescue is as much about people as it is about the dogs.

Louie came from Kent Animal Control when he was about 4 months old. They were reluctant to adopt out pit bulls but wanted to *save* him because of his striking good looks–he had a lightning bolt marking down his face. He was also a good dog with some basic skills, including walking on a leash without dragging you down the street.

And he was the first pit bull I really wanted to keep. He was goofy, loving, and had wonderfully sweet eyes. But without a full time job (remember I lost my job in the dot com bust?) and without a yard, it wasn’t the responsible thing to do.

He was very tall-n-lanky so we suspected he was a Dane mix but after watching him chase after squirrels, we agreed he was part Greyhound. A dear friend of mine adopted him–the same friend that first told me about Anne’s pit bull rescue at Ideal Pet Stop. I took this photo one Sunday morning. This was typical Louie: clowning around while his people are trying to read the paper and drink their coffee.

The more involved I was with Anne’s pit bull rescue, the more puppies I fostered in my 500 square foot studio apartment in Capital Hill. I lived over Fillipi Book and Records, and Brenda Fillipi didn’t bat an eye when I told her I was keeping pit bull puppies in the apartment I rented from her. Brenda was great like that.

Anne rang me up one day with a request to foster four, 5-week old puppies that had been left in a cardboard box outside the Humane Society in Bellevue. Here’s the Fab Four in my kitchen. 

Three were adopted  quickly. The 4th, Bandsaw Jackson, was shy and a little fearful. She stayed with me until she was 5 months old. I socialized her like crazy: riding the bus downtown; carting her through the grocery store; meet-n-greets at Volunteer Park; the Pride Parade; hiking in the mountains. Here’s Bandsaw at Ocean Shores.

Along came Danielle, a woman who grew up with big dogs. She fell in love with this beach photo of Bandsaw on PetFinder and after trying to talk her out of it, she proved she was committed to working with her quirky behavior.  This is one of several Christmas cards Danielle has sent over the years. She adopted Brooklyn, the white pit bull, about 2 years later.

This is the joy of fostering: You raise em like your own, send em off to become someone else’s beloved family pet, and then you see photos like this. All grown up and getting to eat the cookie dough right outta the mixer.

I continued to photograph families for the Pit Bull Project exhibit. These photo shoots gave me insight about pit bulls and family life because I asked a lot questions–first days together, daily routine, issues.

Meet the Hyman family. Emma, the cutie on the left, came to Anne when she was a year old. She’d just had a litter of puppies, was malnourished, and wasn’t well socialized with dogs or people. The Hymans smoothly made Emma just one of the family–they’d had her a few years when I took this photo in 2002.

Mrs. Hyman grew up with German Shephards, and they had beautiful oil paintings of her family’s dogs. This was the first family I met that talked about setting their dogs up to succeed. The dogs were never left together unsupervised–not because they had reason to believe something would happen but they wanted to make sure nothing could happen. They used the phrase *setting them up to succeed*, and it’s stuck with me.

This is the Hilliard family. Remember Blackie?  Blackie was picked up as a stray by Animal Control and released to Anne. A year later, the Hilliards adopted Blackie and very soon after they adopted Mocha, the puppy you see here. 

Blackie was an escape artist that repeatedly got loose and showed up at Ideal Pet Stop, which was just down the street from their home.

We joked that he missed Anne–having been with her for a year–but this family was my first glimpse of a family that had huge hearts but was in over their heads. They’d never owned a dog before and now they had two adolescent pit bulls.

I kept asking: How’s Blackie getting loose? What if he gets hit by a car? What if someone thinks he killed their cat?

Mocha grew more dog aggressive as she matured, and after many fights between the two dogs, the family eventually had to put them both to sleep.

These photo shoots taught me a lot about what makes a good home for a pit bull–and made me think hard about a rescue organization’s responsibility in re-homing dogs.

He came to Anne the usual way. Like me, someone heard about this woman doing pit bull rescue out of a pet store and looked up Ideal Pet Stop’s phone number. 

He was a big pit bull, 80 lbs or so, that a lady found curled up on her front porch one morning. It was the typical scenario: No tags, no microchip, no one looking for him. The lady was a little scared of him but thought he seemed friendly. She’d been keeping him in her garage and couldn’t keep him as a pet. She asked friends and family, and no one would take him. She thought Animal Control would put him to sleep. She didn’t want to give him to just anyone because she’d heard about people using them for dog fighting. And she needed him to go somewhere else asap because her cats were getting really stressed out.

I was at the store the day Anne took a look at him. She said she wasn’t crazy about him but agreed to try and find him a home. She also agreed that since he had no where to go that she’d make room for him at her house. The lady was relieved, bought some catnip, and left feeling like a good citizen.

We named him Shadow because of his Phantom of the Opera masking. 

I spent the weekend at the store taking Shadow for walks and observing him. I wondered where he’d come from, what he’d seen, who he’d been with. He didn’t gush with affection for people and although he made good eye contact–like he’s doing in this photo I took of him–there was no warmth in his eyes. They were vacant. 

After being with Anne for two weeks, he hadn’t warmed up to her or anyone else. No wiggle butt tail wagging. She just didn’t trust him.

Then one evening, in Anne’s backyard, Shadow was out for a potty break with two of her dogs. Up to this point, he’d ignored other dogs entirely. Fast as lightning, quiet as night, Shadow went after her dogs with fury. A terrible dog fight broke out, all three dogs were injured, and Anne was bitten.

Anne had Shadow euthanized the next day.

He was the first dog I knew that was euthanized for not being rock solid. And over the years I’ve thought about Shadow because of the hundreds of pit bulls I’ve crossed paths with, he’s the only pit bull I’ve ever met that had an eery silence about him. He’s one of the very few I can’t piece a story together for, and I hold on to that to remember that knowing why isn’t always the most important thing.

I wanted to help Anne do more public education. The pet store was a terrific hub for rescue but we wanted a way to start changing the public’s perception of the breed. 

I was inspired by my friend, Robin–remember she joined me on the midnight mission for Fagen and Rodeo?

Robin is a terrific photographer who photographed Rose Hill, a woman in her 20s fighting breast cancer. She then organized a wonderful fundraising photo exhibit at the Rose Bud Cafe in Capital Hill. Her photos raised awareness about breast cancer in the lesbian community–her photos made a difference.

I pitched the photo project idea to Anne, she loved it, and we referred to it as *Pit Bull Project* from the start. Renuka loaned me her Canon SLR, and Anne selected familes from her growing pool adopters.  

I set out to tell the stories of pit bulls that went from bad situations into loving homes. Here’s the first photograph I took for Pit Bull Project.
Sunny was purchased on the streets of Tacoma when she was 4 1/2 weeks old. The owner kept her one night and then dropped her off at the Humane Society because he couldn’t take care of her. The shelter released the puppy to Anne, and Sunny was adopted by Nadine, a Vet Tech who could bring her doggie to work. Sunny is about one year old in this photo.

I started spending a lot of time at Ideal Pet Stop helping Anne do everything from bathing dogs to walking dogs to hugging dogs. Here’s a photo of me at the store one weekend.

Anne juggled managing the pet store, running a dog rescue, and taking care of lots of animals. There were the dogs, cats, and birds of her very own–Anne’s first passion was birds. There were the dogs she fostered while they waited for permanent homes. 2, sometimes 3 or 4 fosters. And there were the creatures at Ideal Pet that she cared for–mice, fish, turtles, snakes.

On most days, she pulled it off. But there were days that put her over the edge, like the day I called her with another dog.

My pit bull radar had turned on. I started seeing them everywhere: in the car next to me while I was driving, at the park lounging with someone in the sun, running alongside a jogger. And I started assessing the situation as good or bad for the dog.

One day I was walking down Broadway, and I spotted a street kid with a pit bull puppy asking for spare change. I assessed this as *bad* for the dog so I chatted him up and asked him if he’d sell the puppy. I swayed him with a hundred bucks and talked him into agreeing he didn’t need the hassle of caring for a dog.

At first I thought I’d done the right thing so I proudly called Anne. She pointed out she didn’t need me buying dogs for her to find homes for because she had way more free dogs than she could realistically adopt. She didn’t point out how disrespectful I was to the kid–I realized that on my own.

I was still grasping supply-and-demand. It would take me a while longer to understand there are way more good pit bulls than there are good homes.

Despite being thoroughly annoyed with me, Anne agreed to list the dog with SPDR–even though this dog was probably not  a smidge pit bull. Turns out not every brindle dog is a pit bull (and I’m laughing at myself when I write this). She was adopted within days. Here’s the one photo I have of her with my JRT, Spatula.

Fagen was a fiesty little thing from the moment we met her. She was pushy with dogs and too big for her britches with strangers so we agreed she needed boot camp time with Anne. Fagen become one of the 5 pit bulls Anne carted to-and-from the pet store every day. They were 5 of many more that she worked tirelessly to find homes for.

Anne wasn’t the type of person who panicked but one day she called me pretty freaked out.  A kid came into the store asking for advice on what to feed puppies–he’d heard she knew a lot about pit bulls. As he was checking out the dogs at the store, he spied Fagen and declared, “That’s my dog. She was stolen from my backyard about a month ago.”

Anne calmly responded, “I don’t know if this is your dog or not. Some kid gave her to me after buying her off some guy down on Rainier.”

“She’s probably spayed, hunh?” and Anne said, “Yeah, we just had her fixed.”

Anne stopped taking Fagen to the store and very soon she was adopted by a breed savvy woman from Portland. Here’s a photo of Fagen with Mary Anne about one year later.

The two puppies were malnourished and full of worms. Anne gave me dewormer, and I fed them warm milk. I’d never seen tape worms before and when they came out of their distended bellies, I wretched.

We named the two girls Rodeo and Fagen. Again, there was jazz so we borrowed from Billie Holliday’s original name, Elenore Fagan. And Rodeo, well, I love to watch rodeos on TV. I’d root for the bull and sometimes the short, skinny cowboys.

Now that I’d taken 3 dogs from the same backyard, friends urged me to think about how dangerous it was. Was it worth getting shot? Probably not but it still felt worth the risk.

A week later, Maggie P’s partner made it clear over dinner at Jamjuree Thai: I wasn’t just putting myself at risk. I was putting them at risk.

They were concerned the neighbors I was stealing dogs from would know they were involved. I respected their fear and from that point forward, Maggie P and I only chatted about the dogs in secret.

Remember my orange tabby, Lindel? Well, he was a love with these two puppies.

The brown puppy that was chained up in Maggie P’s neighbor’s backyard the day after I took Ruu was gone soon after he appeared.

But Maggie P reported there were now more puppies on the opposite side of the yard from Ginger and the other red pit bull. She didn’t know how many but she heard lots of yelping.

I convinced my friend, Robin, to join me for an after-midnight mission. My plan was to just check things out while she kept a lookout. It was about 3 a.m., the flood lights were off, and I had two packs of hotdogs that I chucked at the adult dogs to keep them quiet.

This was another opportunity so I climbed over the chain link fence. I spied three puppies and gave Robin the wait signal. She whispered, “Is it going to bite me?”  I rolled my eyes to reassure her and handed her the first puppy, about the size of a mission-style burrito. I handed her a second puppy.

The third puppy was dead–curled up in the back of the igloo-shaped dog house. No blankets, no weather flap, an empty bowl.

I climbed back over the fence, and we rushed nervously back to the car. Robin had the two puppies tucked safely inside her black, puffy jacket.

This was the first photo I took of them.

One of my first friends in Seattle was Jason. It was 1994. I’d been accepted to UW for graduate school, and I was here apartment hunting in the U-District. We met in a bar and a few weeks later, when I pulled up in a U-Haul, there was a note from him on my apartment door, “Welcome to Seattle!”

We lost touch over the years but we crossed paths again (in a bar). Turned out he was interested in getting a dog so he came over and met Theo. Jason adopted him from Anne, who was the Pit Bull Breed Representative for Seattle Purebred Dog Rescue at the time.

This photo was taken one year later. Jason re-named him Ruupert (aka Ruu).

I called MaggieP to find out if her neighbors had even noticed the puppy was gone. I couldn’t believe what she told me. Their backyard flood lights were on, and another puppy was chained up in the exact same place. About the same age but didn’t have a brindle coat.

I was rendered powerless–deflated and embarrassed by how naive I was.

I knew the puppy I’d stolen didn’t matter to them but their bold statement told me so much more: If I wanted to make a difference for pit bulls, it couldn’t be stealing one dog at a time.

At home, I put on some music. I mostly listened to jazz back then, and when a track by Thelonious Monk played over the speakers, the puppy that had been listless stood strong and looked around the room with an interest in the world. 

So I named him Thelonious Monk. Pretty silly in retrospect but I like the fact I marked the moment of seeing a change.

Theo spent those first days cuddled up with my orange tabby, Lindel.

Anne called ahead to Rainier Valley Vet so I could take the puppy in for a health assessment, and she told me to come to the pet store to meet her afterwards.

I met Dr. Heino that day, a vet I would cross paths with many times. And I met Anne Holte, a woman that inspired me to do something for pit bulls.

Anne reminded me of a Johnny Cash song. She’d have a bag of dog food slung over her shoulder while talking to someone on the phone about a pit bull they’d found as she was sidestepping a dog she rescued while pointing out where the collars are for a customer.

This is one of the few photos I have of Anne but it’s exactly how I remember her. That’s Blackie in the foreground. It took her a year to find him a home. He was adopted by a family that lived down the street. And that rascal Blackie would escape back to the pet store every couple of weeks.

That same spring day I was taking pictures with Spatula, my JRT, watching, a kid left the house on a bike, and I saw an opportunity. I walked into their backyard through an unlocked gate, unchained the brindle puppy, and walked out.

I remember Ginger howling as the gate closed behind me. I didn’t look back and went straight to my car.

I left Spatula at MaggieP’s house and drove the puppy back to my studio apartment in Capital Hill. During the car ride home, I kept petting him to calm myself down. Did they see me? Are they following me? What the hell am I doing?

I could tell no one had ever pet him by the way he looked at me.

Here’s the picture I took when I got him home. He had dime-size sores on his legs and had trouble walking so I called Anne at Ideal Pet Stop.

I’ve been collecting the pieces since 2000. It was that year, over drinks at Linda’s Tavern, that Maggie P told me there were 3 dogs chained up in her neighbor’s backyard. It was a dirt pit with homemade shelters, empty water bowls, little human interaction, and barking at all hours.

3 pit bulls in an urban neighborhood. 1 red female. 1 red male. 1 young brindle male.

We met at Linda’s week in, week out and tried to make sense of it. Crying into our cocktails and chain smoking cigarettes, we couldn’t understand why they had dogs. And we tried to do something about it.

She called Animal Control. I called Animal Control. She called the Police. I called the Police. She reached out to neighbors who didn’t want to get involved. I contacted a lawyer who explained I had no grounds.

I mailed anonymous letters to the address and included tips on taking care of outdoor pets. Remember: Never leave your animal chained or penned up directly in sunlight. Provide a shady area where the animal can retreat, such as a proper dog house, porch or shady tree, and always provide cool water.

Maggie P watched over the dogs from her bedroom window, from her kitchen window, from her bathroom window. And one day she overheard one of the dog’s names: Ginger.

About that same time, I learned about a woman doing pit bull rescue out of a pet store. I didn’t know she received calls like this every day: There are these pit bulls, and they need help. Animal Control says they can’t do anything. Can you help?

Anne said there was nothing she could do and that she wasn’t in the business of stealing dogs. She suggested I try to get some proof of neglect.

The next day I lost my job in the dot com bust, picked up my camera, and went to get proof.

I took this photo that day with my Jack Russell, Spatula, watching quietly. And for a JRT, that’s blog-worthy.

This is the first puzzle piece.