(Personal information not relevant to the Dogo was removed...W.S.K.)
OK. I'm a new dogo owner and you'll all (I feel like I know you from reading all these postings) learn more about that in the next couple of weeks. I've been on a mad search for dogo info since I received my dog. I had never heard of them, so all I know is a sweet, incredibly loving, happy, happy, happy dog that would happily go with anyone who shows her any attention, or play with any dog no matter how much he/she lets her know that he doesn't want to. (She even made a Shutzhund trained dog break command because she was doing her compelling "come play with me" message so hard while he was in a demonstration - his trainer kicked him! Ugh.) My first inquiry on the internet lead me to a site which informed me that Dogo Argentinos are one of five dogs banned in Britain. That was OK. I quickly learned that they had had an incident and then banned a group of dogs - preferably ones that weren't already in the country. OK. I pretty much ignored that. But tonight I read this legal section and the story of the killing in Germany. It was not the first I had heard - I checked out the Molosser website where it is mentioned. But this story was so graphic and upsetting. God, I can't imagine what I would have done. I probably would have gone berserk and got put in jail for attacking a police officer or something.... How out of control is it for someone to take away your eight year old companion for execution? Nazis all over again.
Anyway, I started thinking. (Always a mistake.
)
I am a total animal person. First, I want everyone to know that. I rescue any stray of any kind that I can catch (dogs are hard to catch, regretfully).
So now I have this Dogo. I was horrified at the Diane Whipple thing. I couldn't even watch it on the news. Everytime I hear a story about a pit bull tearing up the baby in the family I cringe. I have challenged without fear my neighbors in my not so great neighborhood who let their pits run loose (!) by threatening to have their dogs removed from their homes. I regularly call the Humane Society on my neighbors' dogs that form a pack a night cruising the neighborhood for who knows what. I don't really know a lot about dogs but I've been learning. I watch them every day in the dog park. I see so many different breeds and how they react to other people and each other. Pits are one of the scariest. Not because they are mean, in fact I know they are not! But they are soooooooo powerful. The other day, on the way home from the dog park there was a female pit running loose in the middle of a big street. I stopped my car and got out (true to form) and tried to catch her. Fortunately, I had dog treats in my pocket and she was hungry. She turned out to be my neighbor's dog whom I have threatened three times and called the Humane Society on twice. He never trains her. She never goes out, except when she escapes. When she escapes, he beats her with a rolled up newspaper and she cowers. That's what she did when I approached her with the treat. She rolled on her back and wouldn't get up. You know what it is like to try to get a pit bull off her back from the middle of the street into a car? Let me tell you, it's hard. I'm strong and I couldn't pick her up. ("Pick her up?" My friend screamed at me when I told him the story. "You tried to pick up a strange pit bull?!!!!") I had to try to roll her by bribing her with the treats until she was upright so I could lead her to the car. I put her in the car with my Dogo - what else was I supposed to do, let her run in the middle of traffic? Ask her to wait while I drove home and dropped off my dog? I put my dog's leash on her and drove home as fast as I could. My Dogo wanted to play. Pit bull wasn't socialized and was confused. When we got in I noticed my Dogo was bleeding from a small surface wound. I took the pit into the house first. She was wearing a leather collar (with studs no less) and I attached my leather leash. When I got her out of the car she started to run. It took all my strength to hold her and I though the leash would snap in two. I pulled her into the house hoping none of my cats would make the mistake of crossing our path and got her in the bathroom where she proceeded to begin to batter down the door. Get the picture? I wasn't afraid of her. She wasn't dangerous, at least not other than through the inadequacies of her owner, but she was a powerhouse of 50 pounds of muscle. Straight muscle and dense bone. You know how strong that is? It is potential danger, real potential. I've seen pits at the park that were so muscled they had a "waist." Not a tucked up loin after the ribs, but a waist. The rear legs and rump were as muscled or more so than the front chest. They look like the proverbial "hourglass figure." Once I saw a woman there with a Staff. terrier. She was too afraid to take the chance of letting him off the leash and he was lunging across the park attempting to just run, pulling her along with every lunge. She had absolutely no control over the dog.
OK, OK. I can hear all of you saying, "see, its the owner, not the dog." True, I agree with you. BUT, in my neighborhood alone there are at least five irresponsible pit owners just like the one mentioned above. That's five pits that are potential time bombs. (All of them unneutered!) The second it takes for them to be lethal - is that a second that we should take a chance with?
So, here's my problem. I understand both sides of the argument. No baby's life is worth a breeder's right to keep breeding aggression and power into a pit bull. On the other hand, no dog deserves the life of the pit I described above. (Yes, I gave her back with a huge lecture and warning to the owner. They have started walking her a couple of times a week.... If I hadn't have given her back my Humane Society would have put her to sleep almost instantly...Ugh.... there are no good answers.) And what about the potential of harm or death to an innocent playmate in the dog park if a pit playing turns aggressive? It all happens in a second!
In the meantime, I have this Dogo. Are they really dangerous? Why are people putting them on lists for legislative banning or death? I already totally identified with the poor German family in that story, imagining how I'd feel now, after a few weeks having her, of having her ripped away. It bothers me so much I can't sleep (so I'm writing y'all instead!) Other than banning or death, what are the solutions for the irresponsible ownership of powerhouse/dangerous dogs? (I'm defining as dangerous a dog that can kill within minutes - too fast and powerfully for anyone to stop him/her.) What are the solutions for well meaning owners who just can't get control of the situation, or who are in denial of how potentially dangerous the situation really is? On the one hand I think how terrible it would be if pit bulls were extinct. On the other hand I think that all breeders should be banned. There are too many suffering, unwanted animals abused and killed everyday. On the other hand I'm totally in love with my dogo and so glad that whoever brought her into this world gave me the opportunity to know and enjoy her. See the problem?
OK. Everybody join in. What are your thoughts? How do we unravel this one? And are Dogos really dangerous?
OK. I'm a new dogo owner and you'll all (I feel like I know you from reading all these postings) learn more about that in the next couple of weeks. I've been on a mad search for dogo info since I received my dog. I had never heard of them, so all I know is a sweet, incredibly loving, happy, happy, happy dog that would happily go with anyone who shows her any attention, or play with any dog no matter how much he/she lets her know that he doesn't want to. (She even made a Shutzhund trained dog break command because she was doing her compelling "come play with me" message so hard while he was in a demonstration - his trainer kicked him! Ugh.) My first inquiry on the internet lead me to a site which informed me that Dogo Argentinos are one of five dogs banned in Britain. That was OK. I quickly learned that they had had an incident and then banned a group of dogs - preferably ones that weren't already in the country. OK. I pretty much ignored that. But tonight I read this legal section and the story of the killing in Germany. It was not the first I had heard - I checked out the Molosser website where it is mentioned. But this story was so graphic and upsetting. God, I can't imagine what I would have done. I probably would have gone berserk and got put in jail for attacking a police officer or something.... How out of control is it for someone to take away your eight year old companion for execution? Nazis all over again.
Anyway, I started thinking. (Always a mistake.
)I am a total animal person. First, I want everyone to know that. I rescue any stray of any kind that I can catch (dogs are hard to catch, regretfully).
So now I have this Dogo. I was horrified at the Diane Whipple thing. I couldn't even watch it on the news. Everytime I hear a story about a pit bull tearing up the baby in the family I cringe. I have challenged without fear my neighbors in my not so great neighborhood who let their pits run loose (!) by threatening to have their dogs removed from their homes. I regularly call the Humane Society on my neighbors' dogs that form a pack a night cruising the neighborhood for who knows what. I don't really know a lot about dogs but I've been learning. I watch them every day in the dog park. I see so many different breeds and how they react to other people and each other. Pits are one of the scariest. Not because they are mean, in fact I know they are not! But they are soooooooo powerful. The other day, on the way home from the dog park there was a female pit running loose in the middle of a big street. I stopped my car and got out (true to form) and tried to catch her. Fortunately, I had dog treats in my pocket and she was hungry. She turned out to be my neighbor's dog whom I have threatened three times and called the Humane Society on twice. He never trains her. She never goes out, except when she escapes. When she escapes, he beats her with a rolled up newspaper and she cowers. That's what she did when I approached her with the treat. She rolled on her back and wouldn't get up. You know what it is like to try to get a pit bull off her back from the middle of the street into a car? Let me tell you, it's hard. I'm strong and I couldn't pick her up. ("Pick her up?" My friend screamed at me when I told him the story. "You tried to pick up a strange pit bull?!!!!") I had to try to roll her by bribing her with the treats until she was upright so I could lead her to the car. I put her in the car with my Dogo - what else was I supposed to do, let her run in the middle of traffic? Ask her to wait while I drove home and dropped off my dog? I put my dog's leash on her and drove home as fast as I could. My Dogo wanted to play. Pit bull wasn't socialized and was confused. When we got in I noticed my Dogo was bleeding from a small surface wound. I took the pit into the house first. She was wearing a leather collar (with studs no less) and I attached my leather leash. When I got her out of the car she started to run. It took all my strength to hold her and I though the leash would snap in two. I pulled her into the house hoping none of my cats would make the mistake of crossing our path and got her in the bathroom where she proceeded to begin to batter down the door. Get the picture? I wasn't afraid of her. She wasn't dangerous, at least not other than through the inadequacies of her owner, but she was a powerhouse of 50 pounds of muscle. Straight muscle and dense bone. You know how strong that is? It is potential danger, real potential. I've seen pits at the park that were so muscled they had a "waist." Not a tucked up loin after the ribs, but a waist. The rear legs and rump were as muscled or more so than the front chest. They look like the proverbial "hourglass figure." Once I saw a woman there with a Staff. terrier. She was too afraid to take the chance of letting him off the leash and he was lunging across the park attempting to just run, pulling her along with every lunge. She had absolutely no control over the dog.
OK, OK. I can hear all of you saying, "see, its the owner, not the dog." True, I agree with you. BUT, in my neighborhood alone there are at least five irresponsible pit owners just like the one mentioned above. That's five pits that are potential time bombs. (All of them unneutered!) The second it takes for them to be lethal - is that a second that we should take a chance with?
So, here's my problem. I understand both sides of the argument. No baby's life is worth a breeder's right to keep breeding aggression and power into a pit bull. On the other hand, no dog deserves the life of the pit I described above. (Yes, I gave her back with a huge lecture and warning to the owner. They have started walking her a couple of times a week.... If I hadn't have given her back my Humane Society would have put her to sleep almost instantly...Ugh.... there are no good answers.) And what about the potential of harm or death to an innocent playmate in the dog park if a pit playing turns aggressive? It all happens in a second!
In the meantime, I have this Dogo. Are they really dangerous? Why are people putting them on lists for legislative banning or death? I already totally identified with the poor German family in that story, imagining how I'd feel now, after a few weeks having her, of having her ripped away. It bothers me so much I can't sleep (so I'm writing y'all instead!)
Other than banning or death, what are the solutions for the irresponsible ownership of powerhouse/dangerous dogs? (I'm defining as dangerous a dog that can kill within minutes - too fast and powerfully for anyone to stop him/her.) What are the solutions for well meaning owners who just can't get control of the situation, or who are in denial of how potentially dangerous the situation really is? On the one hand I think how terrible it would be if pit bulls were extinct. On the other hand I think that all breeders should be banned. There are too many suffering, unwanted animals abused and killed everyday. On the other hand I'm totally in love with my dogo and so glad that whoever brought her into this world gave me the opportunity to know and enjoy her. See the problem?OK. Everybody join in. What are your thoughts? How do we unravel this one? And are Dogos really dangerous?
