If you followed me on my social media, you will know I am a proud fur mama.
I love my nearly 6 years old fur baby - Arlo, who we adopted through an amazing rescue organisation (Chained Dog) and we are very lucky to have him in our lives.
Let's be honest here, Arlo is not the first choice for lots of families when they are looking for a rescue to adopted. As he is half Labrador and half Staffy (Staffordshire Bull Terrier), which a lots of people think he is a Pit Bull. Let me remind you here, Pit Bull is not a breed. He has separation anxiety, need daily exercises and he is not a social dog. Arlo also get jealous quite a bit, so he needs to be the only pet in the house. However, if people take time to know him a little bit more, they will realise he has a ton of other personalities (protective, smart, love people and easy going nature…etc) to balance out his little imperfection.
Before Arlo been adopted, he had a tough life (from what I can gather), he was roaming around the streets until he was 2. Stayed at another rescue centre, but that rescue centre got closed down (possibly mistreating their animals) so Arlo got picked up by Chained Dog and stay with the foster home for another 6 months. We speculate the reason Arlo doesn’t like water, HATES loud noises and RUN AWAY when he sees hoses and vacuum may be because these were the things use to punish him. I don't know what happen to Arlo before he met us, but all I know is I will provide best life that he can have with us as now he is part of my family.
Arlo gets compliment a lot as he has mostly for being a beatify dog and good leash manner, but I was concerned when I hear people's passing comment of "He is a beautiful dog, he just priming." As I have been told "priming" is commonly use in dog fighting and they think Arlo is at the peak performance age. I was horrified! Then it makes me even more concerned when I saw another dog looks identical to Arlo got stolen in the area. There must be people out there want this specific type of dogs, to use their loyalty to human to fight. This makes me sad and angry. As I could see how easily Arlo will be condition to do that.
Then the other day, I read a news article online indicate that a Pit Bull has bitten the new owner's kid to death after been adopted only 6 months and now will be put to death. I feel so sorry for the owner but then I saw the comments of all the people saying that Pit Bull is dangerous and should never been adopted into a family, people should adopt Labrador or Golden Retriever.
I feel sad about the situation, how quickly we humans to condemn these dogs, but never thought what trauma the dogs might have been through, and just like human some trauma has no quick fix.
I don't know people who thinks a certain breed of dog is dangerous understand or ever realised, we humans created them as a specie (there was no dog, human domesticate wolves become dogs)! Due to human's desire is not easily satisfied, we created different breeds. I am unsure if people know what it means to create a breed, we humans have to keep killing off the dogs that doesn’t have the quality or traits that we want, and keep mating the survived dogs to ensure the genetics are strong enough to be carry on for the rest of the generation of that particular type of dog. This is cruel on it's own.
Now, the certain breed is out of fashion and once their highly recognised qualities become dangerous traits. They get classified as menacing dogs purely because their breed (this is in New Zealand), and then every encounter (dog off leash in a leashed park, and owner is so far away can't control the dog) is immediately their fault because they are menacing dog.
In order to protect Arlo from any unwanted encounter, we no longer walk him with only one person. In case, a off leash dog run towards us at least one person can go and stop the dog, the other person can lead Arlo away from the scene. This has happened more than I care to count, as generally people think "my dog is friendly" but never thought that is their opinion. To the people who is afraid of the dogs, or the owner with dog not able to social that is a totally different story.
Arlo also wears muzzle when he exercise in public area just in case. His harness has big letter saying "NO DOGS!!!" and it's reflective in the dark. He also has an orange light on top of his harness so people will notice. We are willing to do this to protect Arlo because we know if anything should happens to him, he will be blamed because of his breed.
I just want to voice how I feel, I don't want to argue the breed. As to me, there is no good or bad breed just good or bad dog owner.
We human needs to take more responsibilities when owning a dog. When you adopt, go to a reputable rescue shelter who will access the needs of the dog and your family and ability, then pair you with most suitable dog. Don't rush and make sure you think it though, owing a dog means taking care of a life that means commit at least 10 years of your life (maybe longer). Don't commit unless you feel comfortable and you are sure you can look after them, because they rely on you.