Pit Bull Notes from Seattle

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.

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.

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/

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: