Friday, October 31, 2014
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
PIT BULLS - TRUTH AND BULL
I am privileged to offer a 'guest' blog today by Ms. Holly Jeffrey who is a student working on her Bachelor's Degree. Her writing course requires her to publish a blog and I am happy to help her make that goal by allowing her to post her blog here. Holly has chosen the subject of Pit Bulls - Truth and Bull. So without further adieu please see her blog below:
Holly Jeffrey
WR122
Culminating Project
Pit Bulls – Truth and Bull
INTRODUCTION
There are a disproportionately high number of pit bulls and
pit bull mixed breeds which spend a lot of time in animal shelters, passed over
repeatedly by potential adoptive families.
Pit bull dogs are euthanized within animal shelters at a higher rate than
any other breed of dog. The research
question I have selected is “Is the pit bulls average stay in an animal shelter
longer than other breeds of dogs and what factors impact this discrepancy?”
Pit bulls have a bad reputation but it was not always this way. The pit bull breed originated when English
bull-baiting dogs were bred with smaller terriers to yield the "pit bull
terrier" also known as the pit bull.
According to the American Society for Prevention and Cruelty to Animals
(ASPCA) webpage, these dogs were bred for dog fighting in the 1800's when large
animal baiting was no longer permitted. Pit
bulls have enjoyed a long relationship with humans and are known by some as
loyal and affectionate family pets. In
fact, Petey from the Lil' Rascal's gang was none other than a pit bull and the
breed was once known as “the all-American dog”. So what changed?
Back in the 80's when I was just a kid, I remember driving
through downtown Sacremento with my parents one summer evening and I noticed a
bunch of thugs walking down the street.
One of them had a big, muscular dog he was leading around on the end of
a chain. Yes, a chain. I remember the dog had on a thick, spiked
collar and was very big with well-defined muscles and a big block head. Everything about that group of thugs and the
dog looked tough and seemed to scream "get out of my way and don't mess
with me." I can't say for certain
what type of dog it was because we all sped past quickly and didn't take the
time to look very closely but my belief is that the dog was a pit bull. My point is, at some point in the recent
past, thugs and gang-bangers who wanted to look tough decided that the blocky,
muscular pit bull terrier was the perfect breed to bolster their "tough
guy" image. As demand for the breed
increased, backyard breeders were only too happy to comply. Neglect and outright abuse of any breed of
dog will lead to bad behaviors and the pit bull is certainly no exception so
when ignorant owners provoked their "tough dogs" into aggression,
incidence of dog-inflicted injuries on humans increased and the media was only
too happy to report and sensationalize and label the pit bull as a demon.
The negative media portrayal of pit bulls has contributed to
widespread bad stigma that surrounds these dogs. About half of the dogs in the shelter where I
volunteer are pit bulls and the ones that aren't recent admissions have been
there a while. I have personally
overheard potential adoptive families say "pit bulls are bad dogs, we
won't consider adopting a pit bull".
These fears are fueled by a media that delights in one-sided,
sensationalized reports of aggressive dog attacks and the blame is often placed
on the pit bulls. Rebecca Pickens
summarized it best in her journal article "Michael Vick's Pit Bulls &
Dogfighting: Ramifications of Media Coverage" when she stated "a
conclusion can be drawn that pit bull-type dogs and the many issues surrounding
them, are often only deemed newsworthy if they bite or suffer at the hands of
someone famous. This has contributed to
a tragically negative, one-dimensional portrayal of a major demographic of dogs
in the United States" (34). The
simple fact is that if people would put aside their media-fueled preconceived
notions of shelter pit bulls and simply spend a few minutes with the dog they
would discover not a blood-thirsty biting monster but a loyal, loving and
slobber-infused licking fanatic who really just wants to be accepted and
welcomed into a forever home with a loving family...just like every other dog
at the animal shelter.
RESEARCH
COLLECTION
Source #1
Tullis, Paul. “The Softer Side of Pit Bulls. A Reviled Breed
gets a Makeover.” Time (2013):54. Web. 5 August 2014.
This article describes a brief history of the pit bull and
discusses the aggressive reputation of pit bulls and their association with
dogfighting. Pit bulls are the least
adopted shelter animal and have the highest euthanasia rate in the United
States (Tullis, 55). The bad reputation
of the breed has caused some cities to ban them. Advocacy groups for pit bulls are trying to
change this and improve the overall image and reputation of the pit bull
breed. The pit bull breed has developed
a bad reputation which is largely unfounded and because of their bad
reputation, pit bulls are often passed over in the animal shelter setting and
are euthanized at a higher rate than other breeds of dogs. It is thought that the negative stigma
attached to pit bulls began in the late 70’s when the breed was best known as a
vicious dog fighting machine (Tullis, 56).
However, pit bulls were originally bred to be working dogs and had an
earlier reputation of being a great family dog.
One-sided and negative media portrayal have contributed to a societal
“black listing” of pit bulls that is largely undeserved.
The tide seems to be turning for pit bull dogs and this is
thanks to an increasing number of vocal pit bull advocates. Adoptions at one animal shelter in Chicago
are up 600% and a shelter in Los Angeles maintains a waiting list for families
that specifically want a pit bull breed
(Tullis, 56).
Source #2
Enos, Sara K. “The Problem with People, Not Pit Bulls.” Time
(2014). Web. 5 August 2014.
Sara Enos is the founder of the American Pit Bull Foundation
and is a long time pit bull enthusiast and owner. She writes this article for Time magazine as
a response to an article which ran 6/20/14 titled “The Problem with Pit
Bulls”. Sara states that the pit bull
breed is no different than any other dog breed and that problems with dogs can
usually be traced back to problems with the humans who raised them. Sara believes in responsible breed ownership
and education and states that “canine aggression is triggered by human behavior.”
She also points out that pit bulls are
frequently misidentified and may actually be blamed for bites that are caused
by other similar breeds of dogs and this contributes to the disproportionately
high number of dog bites that are blamed on pit bulls.
I was surprised to read that the American Temperament Test
Society (ATTS) actually rates pit bulls as very friendly. I didn’t know what the ATTS was so I looked
it up and found their webpage. The test
measures a dogs’ ability to interact with humans, human situations, and the
environment. Frankly, I was shocked and
pleased to discover that the pit bull ranked 91.1% which is very good. To compare, I looked up the Labrador
retriever and discovered it was ranked at 92%.
Sara Enos essentially summarized what I, and most other pit bull
advocates, already knew: a good dog in the hands of bad people will do bad
things and this is true of pit bull dogs and any other breed.
Source #3
Pickens, Rebecca C. “Michael Vick’s Pit Bulls &
Dogfighting: Ramifications of Media Coverage.” Journal of Student Research
(2013): 29-35. Web. 5 August 2014
Rebecca Pickens article addresses the profound impact the
Michael Vick dogfighting case had on the image and reputation of the pit bull
breed. Media can play an important role
in enforcing or debunking stereotypes and influencing public opinion on a
subject. Negative media portrayal of pit
bulls has played a large part in fueling fear and stereotypes related to this
breed of dog. This sensationalism has a
direct impact on the lives and well-being of shelter animals, particularly pit
bull breeds, because they are often passed over and left in the shelter for
longer periods and are euthanized at a higher rate than other shelter dogs.
The widespread media coverage of the Michael Vick case and
pit bull horror had a profound effect on pit bull advocates. Pickens is quoted as stating “for the first
time in decades America rallied for the pit bull. Animal rights advocates saw
an opportunity to increase public demand for tougher sentencing on dogfighting
and decrease public fear of these misunderstood dogs” (29). Pickens also reiterates the fact that the
term “pit bull” is not an official dog breed and can in fact reflect many very
unique and genetically diverse dog breeds such as the American Staffordshire
Bull Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier and American Pit Bull Terrier
(30). Furthermore, the media is credited
with utilizing the term “pit bull” to describe any number of dogs that happen
to have certain physical characteristics (Pickens, 30). Over time it could be accurately stated that
the pit bull terrier has been the unfortunate victim of dog profiling and has
had a disproportionately high number of incidents pinned on it simply because
of the way it happens to look. All of
this negative media publicity and blame has certainly tainted the reputation of
a breed that was once known as “the all-American” dog (Pickens, 29).
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Thursday, August 21, 2014
UNITED WE STAND AND CONQUER, DIVIDED WE FAIL
I lost a friend last night. Well not a ‘real’ friend really but a
Facebook friend. She 'unfriended' me on Facebook because when
she posted some pretty hateful stuff toward people who we really need to
influence I pointed out to her that judging and hating never influenced anyone
to change. I shared that personally I’m not here to
judge or hate anyone but to help dogs and educate people. I also expressed my personal wish that the people
who believe that by judging and hating on people you can influence them to do
better or do something different would leave the animal welfare community
because it’s not productive, the judging and hating, and it only drags the rest
of us down. So she unfriended me which I
am not taking personally in the least and to be perfectly honest isn’t a big
deal to me. I don’t
view it as a personal loss but view it as an unfortunate move because one never
knows when networking and joining forces will benefit a cause; so the community
loses but not me personally.
I understand the need to vent. I most certainly understand that being exposed to the injustices
and abuses day after day after day can become painful and is as frustrating as
hell. I get frustrated. I get so frustrated I think about giving up
sometimes because it seems as if the harder we work the less we accomplish because
on some fronts, like cops shooting people’s dogs or people fighting dogs or
people abusing dogs or dogs needlessly dying in shelters because there’s no
room or they have behavioral issues, it seems like we are losing a whole hell
of a lot more ground than we are gaining.
I get pissed. I get truly
aggravated. I want to slap people, kick
asses and cuss people out. But I don’t. Why don’t I you ask? Because although it may vent my anger, my
frustration and my feelings of inadequacy, helplessness and hopelessness it doesn’t
do anyone but me a damn bit of good. It
doesn’t influence any of those people who carry out the acts that are the
source of my aggravation and despair to change.
It doesn’t manifest one bit of change and it sure as hell doesn’t help
or save one single dog. If you think
that venting your anger, frustration, judgment and hatred over the things you
see that are wrong on social media saves dogs then you are clearly not thinking
logically or are under some sort of misguided idea that you have a whole lot
more influence by being angry and being judgmental than you could ever have by
reaching out to those people who you are hating on.
In fact all it really does when I vent my anger among my
fellow animal welfare friends is to motivate them to join in and vent their own
anger. So the next thing you know,
usually on a thread started by a post to help a dog, the thread is filled with
judgment, hatred and anger and not many of the comments are constructive in
that not many of them are doing anything to help the dog. So a thread started by a post to help a dog
that is in dire need or maybe is in imminent danger of losing its life in a
shelter fills up with people fuming about the piece of shit people who caused
the dog to be in the shelter in the first place. If you could I’d like someone out there to
explain to me, in laymen’s terms if you will because apparently I’m just too
stupid to understand this approach to saving dogs, exactly how hating on the people
who caused the dog to be in danger of losing its life or in need of a home is
helping the dog get out of the shelter and into a new home. Yes all of you out there reading this please
if you have an explanation of how this helps the dogs please share it with me
because I’m just too damned daft to see it apparently.
In the end space on threads to help dogs is being taken up
by the judgers and haters while a few of us try to pick through all the
comments judging and hating to find the people who, like us, are trying to actually
DO something to help the dog. It’s very frustrating for me to have to pick
out the helpful comments from all the judging and hating plus it actually makes
me feel a bit ashamed to be a part of the animal welfare community at the same
time. So many say it’s for the dogs but when I see
those comments posted on those threads I have to question some people’s
motives. Is it really for the dogs or is
it just to fill our own emotional needs to be needed and/or to feel
superior to those people who aren’t nearly as perfect as you believe that you are? I’m far from perfect and have made
mistakes with dogs in my lifetime so it’s easy I suppose for me to relate to
those who simply don’t know any better and therefore don’t always do the right
thing for the dog. I do know that being
judged harshly in a public forum for those mistakes would never in a million
years motivate me to do better and I can’t be the only one…
My dear and very wise friend Foster Corder, that I admire
immensely for his drive to unite the animal welfare community and help dogs,
said something in an interview I watched yesterday that really struck a chord
in me. It was something that I think
applies to this whole issue and that is that before we go around judging others we must first clean up our own house. To me that translates into something very
real and critical for us at this juncture in the existence of the animal
welfare community. If we are going to
influence the people who abuse dogs, who fight dogs, who are irresponsible dog
owners, who abandon dogs, who purchase dogs rather than adopt them out there in
the general public then FIRST and FOREMOST we’ve got to get our collective shit
together. We need to STOP, CEASE AND
DESIST with the public judging and hating on people on social media who don’t do
what we believe they should be doing or who are doing things we don’t believe
they should be doing. If we are going to
get them to stop doing what they are doing or begin doing what we want them to
do then we MUST, MUST, MUST change our approach and that includes not
bashing them or people like them all over social media every time a dog ends up
abused or in a shelter. This is critical
to our success in encouraging, inspiring, educating and helping people change
so that fewer dogs will end up dead in shelters or at the hands of humans. That’s just it…we really need to encourage, inspire,
educate and help people do better; not believe that we can judge and hate them
into doing better.
This animal welfare community has been around a long time
before I joined it by becoming a pit bull advocate and it will hopefully be
around a long time after I’m dead and gone but our history isn’t the best due
to the way a lot of our people operate within this community. We haven’t done the best job we could do
because those who ‘get it’ and can suspend judgment in order to reach people
and influence them to do better are outnumbered it seems by those who choose to
allow their emotions to rule them and rather than suspend judgment they completely miss the opportunity to help someone change for the better; for the next
dog they get and the next. When we spew our negative feelings
all over social media about people it only serves to alienate the very people we need to
influence.
All I know is that by continuing to operate as a community
in this manner it is truly a sign of insanity, which is what most ‘outsiders’
think of people in the animal welfare community are, because to continue
to do the same thing in the same way again and again and again expecting a
different outcome is the very definition of insanity.
We’ve got to do better at policing our own ranks which means
we’ve got to do better at helping those who lose their cool because they are
frustrated and angry understand that while we do sympathize and even empathize
with them that we must overcome the urge to vent out there on social media, to
judge people on social media and to spew hatred out on social media. We need to encourage those less hardy among
us to private message their friends if they feel the need to express their
frustration and anger about those people who just abandoned an elderly dog at
their shelter or abused a dog or fought a dog.
We’ve got to do a better job of letting our fellow animal welfare
advocates get that while we understand their angst we can’t tolerate their
negative comments out on social media on the threads following posts to help
dogs. We need to make it perfectly clear
to them that in order for us to be as effective as possible that the space, the time, the effort must be focused SOLELY on helping
the dog and not wasted on condemning the people who caused the dog to need our
help. In
other words those of us who ‘get it’ and who can maintain our cool when we want
to bash the hell out of someone on social media need to let others know what
kind of community we want to be and what kind of united front we want to show
to the general public. It’s passed the time for us to show a united front of people who
are focused ONLY on helping dogs, helping owners who need assistance so they
don’t have to give up their dogs, helping the general public understand that as
a society we need to be more responsible dog owners and if they don’t know what
to do that they need to find out what to do; that they need to ask for help because
WE are here to HELP, not to judge or condemn.
There is a Wiccan code that Wiccans and witches, good witches of course,
live by that states, ‘An' ye harm none, do
what ye will. What ye
send forth comes back to thee…’. It’s a code that we need to adopt and live by
in the animal welfare community in order to truly accomplish those things that
so many in the community work so tirelessly, selflessly and generously to
accomplish. We must change because if we
don’t change then progress will never be made and in generations to come people like us will still
be facing the same challenges and obstacles that we face today and will be feeling and saying the same things
which only means that our community is indeed insane…
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
WHEN FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT A GOOD THING
This morning this writer got a real eye opener, as if I
needed one, in regard to the bias of the news media and how they use the ‘freedom
of the press’ to drive certain ideas or limit others from surfacing. I was watching, well mostly listening to, a
local newscast this morning as I do every morning while putting on my make-up
to ready myself for work. This morning
one of our local news stations, the one we watch every morning, had a segment
about the Yellow Ribbon Project which is a grassroots movement by dog owners to
create a way by which other people can understand that their dog should be
approached with care or caution when in public.
If the reader hasn’t heard of this Yellow Ribbon Project the premise is
that if ‘everyone’, and it would take EVERYONE knowing about this to work, knew
that when they come across a dog sporting a yellow ribbon, a yellow collar, a
yellow vest or anything yellow and conspicuous that the dog wasn’t one that was
comfortable with being approached and one should ask the owner first and/or
approach calmly. I won’t speak to what
this writer thinks of this method of helping one’s dogs feel less threatened by
strangers or other dogs in this blog but at a later time I will give my opinion
on the program. Today I want to speak to
what one of the news anchors commented during this segment, what the segment
guest (who was a veterinarian) said and the stations reaction to the public’s
comments on the post on their Facebook page that ensued.
At any rate I was listening to/watching this segment of the
newscast and thought I heard the anchor man say something that didn’t sound
quite kosher. I asked my husband to
rewind it so I could hear it again to be sure that what I thought he said was
actually what he said. Well yes he did
say what I thought he said and that was, “So this yellow ribbon isn’t
necessarily just for aggressive breeds like pit bulls right?” To which the veterinarian replied, “Yes that’s
right.” I don’t know which person this
writer was most angry with; the news anchor who suggested that there are
aggressive breeds and pit bulls are one or the veterinarian who should know
better missing the opportunity to correct the news anchor about his assumption
that first of all there are aggressive breeds and secondly pit bulls are one of
them. Either way I wasn’t about to just
sit there and listen to it and felt that as a pit bull owner and advocate that
I had to do something to let the news station know that ignorance of that
magnitude needed to be addressed and corrected.
So when I got to work I immediately penned a message to the
news station that I posted on their Facebook page as a comment on the thread
that was started by their posting of the information about the segment about
the Yellow Ribbon Project. It was
calm. It was rational. It was pretty much a request for their anchor
reporter to educate himself about aggressive breeds, in that there aren’t any
inherently aggressive breeds, and about pit bulls in general. I also invited the news anchor and any of
their news reporters to meet with my advocacy so we can share some valid
information with them as well as stating that there was a standing invitation
to their news staff to join us on one of our monthly bully walks so they would
be able to see that responsible dog owners have safe dogs no matter what kind
of dog. I hoped that through commenting
in a rational, calm, non-judgmental manner and inviting them to come and learn
from personal experience about pit bulls and what determines that a dog becomes
aggressive that they might actually take us up on it. I invited them to come meet with us or walk
with us with or without their cameras in the hope that they might be interested
in finding out some information that would actually be a benefit to the public
to hear as opposed to misinformation and conjecture based on a news anchors
personal opinion or maybe just a lack of knowledge on his part.
We all know the way the news media handles pit bulls when
there’s an incident where an alleged pit bull has harmed someone and I suppose
we’ve learned that there’s nothing to be done to change this approach by the
news media, however suggesting in passing when discussing a totally unrelated
issue that pit bulls are one of the ‘aggressive breeds’ is something that we
can address and should not allow to stand without public comment. So in addition to commenting on their
Facebook page myself I called out the troops and asked all of our Bully Walks
to please comment on the news stations Facebook page as well; on the thread
about the Yellow Ribbon Project. People
started posting their comments and as requested by me when I called them to
speak out they posted calm, rational and informational comments asking the
station to please become more educated about what determines that a dog is
aggressive, not the breed, and about pit bulls.
Some people posted photos of their dogs along with their comments. I was so proud of the pit bull owning
community because EVERYONE without exception posted mature, calm, rational and
non-judgmental comments on that thread.
In fact so many people were posting that the thread kind of turned into
commentary on how the news media presents information about pit bulls in
general. I guess you could say that we
took the thread over but in a good way without a single negative comment.
Well I guess the news people decided that they would refuse
to hear it so they took the thread off the page. It started around 8:00 AM and by around noon
the whole thread was gone…the original post and all. People still posted their comments however
without the thread being there which was good.
So there you have it.
The news media selects what stories to report and also what details they
share when reporting a story. I guess
you might say that they own the information so they can twist it all they want
(thanks John Mayer for the words) but if anyone stands up and points out that
their information is twisted, inaccurate or incomplete they won’t have it. Wow.
They have ‘freedom of the press’ and we are all expected to support
their right as given by our forefathers so long ago by not trying to censor the
press. But on the other hand when they
use their right to report what they want when they want and we stand up and ask
them to correct it or withdraw it because it’s simply not true on any level
then they feel they can censor us. I’m
not too sure exactly how that works really.
This writer is extremely confused as to why they can say whatever they
want, true or not-based on actuality or not, and then when we say we won’t
accept that information because we know it’s misinformation they can silence
us; well at least when we are posting on social media on their account. Freedom of speech is supposed to apply to
everyone but I guess it doesn’t, not anymore, not in our country.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)