Submitted by Lara Dale, Jul 22, 2007 02:07

My female pit was thrown into the ring to teach males how to kill. Because she is part whippet, they apparently couldn't catch her. The ringleaders then decided she might make a good fighting dog, so they tried to torture her into aggression. Because she wouldn't "turn" after all their efforts at torture, they got pissed off and tied her to the back of a car to drive her back legs off. After coming upon her limping out of someone's backyard, right rear leg open to the bone, left rear leg looking like a chainsaw had gone after it, my boyfriend dashed her to the vet. I was called at work and told she would have to be put down due to abused pit laws, and burst into tears. The vet said he wouldn't tell anyone about her, but that even if she weren't put down, her legs would have to be amputated. I couldn't stop crying, and told him we just couldn't make that decision right away. My boyfriend and I took her home, and even though we are not religious, we prayed for two days solid for help. That Thursday, we took her back to the vet, fearing the worst. Instead, he came running out from behind the desk in wonder, even calling the staff to join him! Apparently her tendons and ligaments had started to bind and heal back together enough that he was willing to let us bandage her and monitor her condition. $1000 in vet bills later, she is our healed angel baby - the best dog we two dog lovers have ever had - and I still cry 5 years out when I tell this story. By the way – we were told we were lucky - that normally what they do is light the dogs they can't "turn" on fire! And that sometimes a third of all pits in Bay Area shelters are victims of full body third degree burns! My only prayer to this day is that I wish all these people who had never met one of these amazing dogs in real life would stop writing these opinionated stories about how awful they are, and just go to a shelter and foster or rescue one of them yourselves. You will find out that the main reason, besides strength-to-size muscle mass, that these dogs have been singled out for ring fighting, is that they love their human so much, they will do anything - including die in the ring for you - to make you happy. My most painful story is a friend of mine who worked at a Bay Area shelter where at least one third of the dogs were rescued pits. She used to be the one to hold the dogs when they were due to be put down, and try to give them a peaceful death. She quit mysteriously one day, and I finally ran into her and asked why. She said she had been able to handle the situation until one day a black and white male pit came in, throat slit from ear to ear, full body third degree burns. She said she couldn't even fathom what kind of pain he was in, and as she was gathering him in her arms to hug him and talk him through his inevitable death, she began to cry uncontrollably. She said what did it for her was that the dog was more concerned for the pain she was in than his own brutal condition, so that as he was breathing his last breath, he was trying to lick the tears off her face. She said she just couldn't go back to work again because it had become impossible to see the brutality inflicted on these huge-hearted creatures, and she just needed to go away for a while. A long while. Please folks, Michael Vick and these other people who do these things have no hearts - but the animals they so brutally torture do. Can we turn this into a dialogue about how to protect these magnificent human-loving creatures, and can some of these oh-so-opinionated bloggers please try to befriend at least one of these abused or abandoned spirits, before they write such uninformed and misguided stories about them? These dogs were not born this way, and it is a form of animal racism that they get singled out for these horrific fates! Please try to get some personal experience with these pitty babies, and then you will understand why we rescuers view this as being as important as the war or child abuse. Microcosm is macrocosm - what we do in the privacy of our homes is what we will do in the world - and pit bull torture reflects quite well the same values that would lead us into war without questioning our own motives. Make friends with a pit bull today, and you will become a pit bull advocate with a much bigger heart and a much more painful understanding of the hidden violence our culture engenders through its championing of might over right, and its selling of its own bully tactics over any kind of diplomacy or understanding. These angels need understanding - they need as much love from you as they are willing to offer - and I pray we will become a society that raises the pit bull back to its all American dog status, as it was at the turn of the last century - Little Rascals, RCA, et al. All we are saying is...give pits a chance.

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