Pit Bull Notes from Seattle

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.

Tags: Buffalo Sky, BullsEye, Chaney, Diane Jessup

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 at 12:56 am and is filed under Family, Rescue. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.