As a rescuer, I am often confronted with prejudice against certain breeds of dogs. Chows. Dobermans. Chihuahuas. But mostly the group of dog breeds collectively called Pitbulls. I have gotten into debates about how "it's not the dog, it's the handler". The following is from Cesar's Way Magazine. It is a perfect example of this concept. The dogs in the story are those that were bred to fight, raised to fight, and then had to fight for their lives. Those same dogs are now being used as therapy dogs. Leo is a therapy dog for Cancer patients. Hector visits nursing homes, hospitals, and schools. Jonny is a therapy dog that helps children gain confidence by reading to him. All former fighting dogs. Fighting dogs, now helping as therapy dogs!! Change the handler, and you get a different behavior from the dog. It's not the dog, it's the handler!
The story of Jonny Justice
Jonny Justice, a black and white Pit Bull, lay on his blanket and kept his eyes on the young boy who was struggling to read aloud from the book. Kids who are uncomfortable reading in front of a class of other children often do much better with a canine audience. And in this program at the San Mateo, California, Public Library, therapy dogs had been trained to sit patiently, keeping their eyes focused on the book as if following the story being read to them.
Gradually, the boy started to read out whole sentences from Biscuit’s New Trick.
But that wasn’t the only miracle that afternoon. Less than two years earlier, Jonny was one of the 51 dogs that cops had found chained up at Bad Newz Kennels—Michael Vick’s dogfighting operation in Virginia.
For Jim Gorant, a writer at Sports Illustrated, the Vick story was at first all about the downfall of one of the most brilliant football players of his generation. But as the weeks wore on, Gorant became more and more curious about the fate of the dogs.
Gorant started making calls, and after a year of investigation, hours and hours of interviews, and several trips crisscrossing the country, he was able to reconstruct the story of Michael Vick’s Pit Bulls. His book, The Lost Dogs (Gotham Books),goes on sale in September. Luckily for Jonny and the other dogs seized from Vick’s 15-acre property, Gorant was not the only one whose mind was on the fate of the dogs.
Mike Gill, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, headed the federal case against Vick and his partners. Gill knew that the dogs, now property of the government, would likely be put down. Even the Humane Society at that time advocated euthanasia for fight dogs, although in light of what happened in this case, it has changed its position.
Yet Gill kept asking himself if there might be another way. Was it possible they could be rehabilitated? He was just one part of the remarkable coalition of dedicated people discovered by Gorant—people who came together to try to save the Vick dogs and give them a new life.
Gill got in touch with Dr. Stephen Zawistowski, the ASPCA’s leading expert on dog behavior. Zawistowski’s cautious outlook was that perhaps a few of the dogs could be saved and given new lives. What he suggested was to put together a panel of experts who could meet the dogs, put them through rigorous testing, and then evaluate their chances.
Although the case was getting lots of national attention because of Vick’s celebrity, Dr. Zawistowski worked in secret, because of a court-imposed gag order. His panel included six employees of the ASPCA as well as Donna Reynolds and Tim Racer, who founded BAD RAP, a Pit Bull rescue, in Oakland, California, eight years earlier and had saved more than 400 dogs.
As the panel set out to examine the surviving 49 dogs (two had died since the raid), they were acutely aware of the interest in the Pit Bulls—interest that would backfire if just one of the dogs they tried to rehabilitate turned on a person or another dog. So the panel devised a stringent series of tests to check each animal’s temperament, aggressiveness, and physical condition. They optimistically hoped that 10 percent would pass the tests. However, months in shelters after the raid had left many of the animals nearly unresponsive. Several were brought out from their pens and immediately flattened themselves on the ground, reluctant to budge. A number had to be lured into going through the series of tests.
When the evaluations were completed, it was decided—to everyone’s surprise—that 16 of the dogs could be sent to foster homes for observation before being adopted, two were suitable for law enforcement training, and 30 would go to a sanctuary. Just one, a female who had been forcibly bred to the point that she was now irredeemably violent, was euthanized.
Jonny, the therapy Pit Bull, was selected by BAD RAP’s Donna Reynolds who drove him—along with 12 other Pit Bulls—across the country to California in a rented RV, having charged pens, leashes, and food to their credit cards.
Cris Cohen was one of the volunteers chosen by BAD RAP to foster a Vick Pit Bull. Although he had fostered several Pits before, he was initially apprehensive about taking in a fight dog. But the 35-pound black-and-white called Jonny Justice soon changed his mind.
“What was great for me was that some of the volunteers, like Cris, kept detailed daily diaries,” says Gorant. Cohen’s journal detailed how he’d set out to establish a regular routine—getting up at the same time every day, walking the same route, grooming and eating at the same times. It also showed that Jonny had small issues, such as his initial difficulty with stairs, which he had never encountered before, and garbage trucks, which completely freaked him out during walks.
As the weeks went by, though, the young dog’s personality started to come through. It took months of patient work, but eventually Cohen felt Jonny was ready to take the American Temperament Test Society exam and the Canine Good Citizen test. He aced them and was now ready to start his training to become a therapy dog who could help kids learn to read.
In all, 28 of the Vick dogs have been adopted. Of the rest, 15 have started new lives at the Best Friends Animal Society, in Utah. Road accidents claimed a couple, ill health a couple more.
Gorant says he learned a lot from the year he spent investigating the story of the Vick dogs. “When I started on this project, I think I had the same perception of Pit Bulls that a lot of people do—that they can go off in a second—but I came to see that they suffer from guilt by association. Just because you are a Pit Bull and part of a fight bust doesn’t mean you’re a bad dog.
Gorant made a conscious decision to not interview Vick for the book. “He did horrific things, but there’s more to this story than a guy doing horrific things. It is about what happened afterwards.”
He quotes Donna Reynolds: “Vick showed the worst of us, our bloodlust, but this rescue effort showed the best.”
“I don’t think any of us thought it was possible—the government, the rescuers, the other people involved,” Gorant concludes. “We like to think we have life figured out, and it’s nice that it can still surprise us, that sometimes we can accomplish things we had only dreamed of. We’ve moved our evolution forward—just a little bit, but we have, and I am happy to have been part of that.
Other Success Stories!
Happy Tales of some of our Previous Fosters!
Honey
Hi Suzanne, Just another update on our wonderful Honey dog. She is absolutely the perfect dog for us. Once she realized that we don't sleep in the bed or on the couch, she has no bad habits except for dashing out the door before us. She doesn't jump up, bark, lick, or steal food. She is a dream to bathe and loves nothing more than having you pet her head (by the hour if you will). She loves to ride in the car and is a perfect lady about staying on the back seat. She is in obedience classes now and has mastered "sit". The next lesson will be "stay", which should be helpful at the door. Fortunately, once she is out the door, she doesn't run away. She just usually stands by the car hoping for a ride somewhere. She goes to the beach every morning with my husband and would love nothing more than chasing sea gulls all day. Her "hunting" instincts really come out where birds are concerned. She probably would have made a great duck retriever. I honestly can't figure out why her family gave her up, but we sure are glad that they did. We lost our Zachary in early February. He finally wasn't able to stand up anymore under the weight of his massive hernia. Honey has been a real comfort to us during our time of loss. We had Zachary since he was a pup. Thanks again for holding her for us. Joy and Gary
Hi Suzanne! It's Sandra and Patrick from SLO. We adopted Hank from you last March and we wanted to let you know how much we appreciate our new family member. We are so grateful to have him in our lives. He still goes to work with Patrick every day to supervise, and comes to work with me on slow days to brighten everyones day. He is constantly complimented on being the most handsome and well behaved dog they have ever seen. He is always quietly alerting us of people on our property. He even prefers to sleep in the living room on occasion so he can keep an eye on the whole house. We cannot believe how lucky we are to have stumbled upon him. Thank you Suzanne!
Hank
Peter Pan, who finally got the home he deserves with a family who adopted another dog from us about 4 yrs ago. We are so happy for this beautiful, but overlooked boy!
Adorable, smiling Scout. He too finally got a great home. His new caretaker emailed to say how she couldn't imagine anyone giving up such a GREAT dog!
And more dogs we've had the pleasure of saving!
Cleveland-Cleveland was rescued from the Visalia poundwhere he was scheduled to die because he simply ran out of time. Visalia Pound has a kill rate of almost 90%.
Cowboy-Cowboy, and his brother, Wonder, and sister Sweet, were all dumped out in the boondocks of Atascadero, when they were 8 weeks old, and left to die. All 3 dogs are deaf and blind, and came down with Parvo right after we rescued them. They have become my personal dogs, and are now 8 yrs old. All 3 are amazingly capable of navigating my 2 acre property and then finding their way back into the house where they sleep on blankets or, in crates (their favorite spot). For those that think deafness or blindness is a defect I would ask you to consider Helen Keller. How fortunate for us that the society of her day did not "put her down" because she was not like the rest of us.
Zorro-Zorro was dumped at the Ventura pound when he was 10 yrs old, along with his 11 yr old companion dog, who we named Ponder. After having these dogs for years, Zorro and Ponder's owner dumped them at the pound because she said she could no longer care for them and take care of her house, yard, and work for a living. Oh Boo Hoo!!! Welcome the world the rest of us live in! Zorro and Ponder have been with me since 2005 and lived wandering the property until Ponder passed away on May 31, 2008, and Zorro passed away on Aug 7th, 2010. We miss them both. Ponder for his gentle affection, and fuzzy, funny Zorro who loved puppies, and hanging out on the grass in our small garden.
Kahuna and Sasha- Kahuna used to belong to some idiots that live in Nipomo who thought they'd make money breeding big Pitbulls and selling them to any jackass that would give them $50.00. They never vaccinated any of the dogs and so all of them died a miserable death from Parvo. Kahuna had been sold previously, and then unceremoniously dumped back in their yard several months later, after all the other dogs had died. We threatened to turn the idiots in to the INS, DEA, FBI, and any other 3 lettered organization that would be interested in their business practices, unless they handed Kahuna over to us. Kahuna now gets to sleep in the house and run our property during the day, instead of living on a chain in his own waste 24/7. Which is a good thing for Kahuna as all the idiots are now in prison doing time for various crimes. Sasha was rescued from the Ventura pound where she was dumped at the age of 10-11yrs old. She has been with us since 2005 and lived out her days wandering our hillside, and laying in the sun, until she passed away peacefully in her sleep in 2010.
Kahuna although he looks big and fierce in this picture has a big, goofy, puppy personality. He was adopted by a couple looking for just that. Sweet boy!!
Rocky- aka Rocketman, was brought to us in 2001, after his owners sold their southern California home and decided they didn't want a dog anymore. Rocket was 5 yrs old at the time. He is also brain damaged, and blind in one eye from being hit by a car as a puppy. Rocket has been with me for 8 yrs now, and will continue to live out his days here.
Rocket passed away today, Dec. 14, 2010. He was about 14 yrs as best we can guess. Big silly boy laid down, went to sleep, and didn't wake up. I love this picture of him. RIP Rocketman.
Brownie-Brownie became my dog after he continuously ran away from his home in Nipomo and opened the gate to my house to come IN to my yard to play with my dogs. His owner tried unsuccessfully to tie him up, but Brownie did not want to live with there anymore. Why would he. At my house he had other dogs to play with, got plenty of food, and affection, and did not have to live tied up. Finally I got him neutered and then Brownie's male owner had no interest in keeping him anymore. When I moved to Atascadero, Brownie came too and lived with me another 10 years. He died in March of 2007. Losing Brownie crushed my heart.
Lola- Happy, happy Lola was rescued from the Merced Kill-list by another rescuer and then eventually brought here after her previous foster home fell through. Lucky Lola was adopted after a short time by a woman who now takes her to the beach everyday. Here she is being chased by a new friend.
Pontouf- Pontouf was rescued from the kill-list at the Merced pound. This poor boy was so horribly thin when he got here. He was mislabled as dog aggressive. He was just HUNGRY! It took us 6 months for Pontouf's forever home to finally find us. It was worth the wait though as he is now living with 2 other dogs, a cat, a horse, and a parrot. Pontouf is now a much loved family member.
Happy Jack- Lucky Jack was adopted shortly after we rescued him in 2005. He is now a happy boy living in a beachside community.
Fancy, now known as Tess was rescued from a kill pound. Lucky girl now finds herself living her life in the Santa Ynez valley. She is adored by her new family.
Summer and her beautiful baby Hazel. Summer and her companion Lab were abandoned by their jackass backyard breeder. Often left without food, Summer was a bag of bones when she came to our rescue. She had 7 puppies the day she arrived. Now Summer and Hazel live in a place where they are loved, and fed!! Don't support breeders. Of any kind as all they are interested in is your $$$. Not the welfare of the dogs they profit from selling. Lucky for Summer her jackass owners abandoned her or her life would have been that of just a puppy factory. Instead she is a happy girl!
Miss Chloe was rescued off the kill-list at the Merced Pound. She had done nothing wrong. Just been abandoned by her owner and had run out of time at the pound. She was scheduled to be put to death and stuffed into a plasitc body bag. Instead the volunteers at the Merced Pound transported to our rescue Chloe and 6 others that were scheduled to die that week. Chloe was finally adopted by a family who just adore her. Chloe has become a beach dog and now lives with a new kitten and a new human baby too. Lucky girl!!
Beautiful Cannoli was eventually adopted by a wonderful SLO family who report he is FANTASTIC with their 3 little kids, including the baby, and a wonderful, well behaved companion. Cannoli gets to walk to school everyday and go for hikes with the family every week. We are SO happy for this excellent boy!
Smiling Amy was adopted by a family as a companion for their 5 yr old son. Amy adores kids and is so sweet with her new boy. She goes for a long walk, every morning with mom, rain or shine, and is a wonderful house companion even when the family is gone during the day. Happy girl!!
Gummybear is a fantastic Staffordshire Bull Terrier. She was adopted by a young couple who had also adopted a dog from us several years ago. They report Gummy is an excellent "retriever", learned very quickly how to use the dog door, and is great friends with their other dogs, spending the day laying in the sun. Gummy is quite the snuggle bug, and sleeps curled up between them every night. We miss this girl's snoring!! It was so hard to say goodbye to her. The consolation is that she has a fabulous home that adores her!
Sweet Charlie came to live with us again after the wonderful man who had adopted him suddenly passed away. Charlie was with us again until a nice couple came to adopt him as a companion dog for the dog they had adopted from us several years ago. Now Charlie and his new friend Emmy spend their days lounging in the sun, sleeping in the house, and generally living a dogs life. We are SO happy for Charlie!!
Mellow Hank got adopted about 2 hrs after Sweet Charlie. We had a nice young coule looking for their first dog. They had been interested in Charlie because they wanted a mellow dog who could go to work with the young man, or sometimes to the Senior Assisted Living Facility, where the young woman worked. Hank totally fit the bill! They report that he has learned many new commands, and totally polite to new people he meets. Undistracted by passing cars, barking dogs, Hank is great on leash. We are so HAPPY for this good boy! He had run out of time at the pound and was sceduled to die. Now he gets to live a full and happy life with his new human companions!! One more reason to adopt a do dog instead of buy from a breeder!!,
Honey
Hi Suzanne! It's Sandra and Patrick from SLO. We adopted Hank from you last March and we wanted to let you know how much we appreciate our new family member. We are so grateful to have him in our lives. He still goes to work with Patrick every day to supervise, and comes to work with me on slow days to brighten everyones day. He is constantly complimented on being the most handsome and well behaved dog they have ever seen. He is always quietly alerting us of people on our property. He even prefers to sleep in the living room on occasion so he can keep an eye on the whole house. We cannot believe how lucky we are to have stumbled upon him. Thank you Suzanne!
Hank
Adorable, smiling Scout. He too finally got a great home. His new caretaker emailed to say how she couldn't imagine anyone giving up such a GREAT dog!
Kahuna although he looks big and fierce in this picture has a big, goofy, puppy personality. He was adopted by a couple looking for just that. Sweet boy!!
Brownie-Brownie became my dog after he continuously ran away from his home in Nipomo and opened the gate to my house to come IN to my yard to play with my dogs. His owner tried unsuccessfully to tie him up, but Brownie did not want to live with there anymore. Why would he. At my house he had other dogs to play with, got plenty of food, and affection, and did not have to live tied up. Finally I got him neutered and then Brownie's male owner had no interest in keeping him anymore. When I moved to Atascadero, Brownie came too and lived with me another 10 years. He died in March of 2007. Losing Brownie crushed my heart.
Happy Jack- Lucky Jack was adopted shortly after we rescued him in 2005. He is now a happy boy living in a beachside community.
Fancy, now known as Tess was rescued from a kill pound. Lucky girl now finds herself living her life in the Santa Ynez valley. She is adored by her new family.
Smiling Amy was adopted by a family as a companion for their 5 yr old son. Amy adores kids and is so sweet with her new boy. She goes for a long walk, every morning with mom, rain or shine, and is a wonderful house companion even when the family is gone during the day. Happy girl!!
Gummybear is a fantastic Staffordshire Bull Terrier. She was adopted by a young couple who had also adopted a dog from us several years ago. They report Gummy is an excellent "retriever", learned very quickly how to use the dog door, and is great friends with their other dogs, spending the day laying in the sun. Gummy is quite the snuggle bug, and sleeps curled up between them every night. We miss this girl's snoring!! It was so hard to say goodbye to her. The consolation is that she has a fabulous home that adores her!
Sweet Charlie came to live with us again after the wonderful man who had adopted him suddenly passed away. Charlie was with us again until a nice couple came to adopt him as a companion dog for the dog they had adopted from us several years ago. Now Charlie and his new friend Emmy spend their days lounging in the sun, sleeping in the house, and generally living a dogs life. We are SO happy for Charlie!!
Mellow Hank got adopted about 2 hrs after Sweet Charlie. We had a nice young coule looking for their first dog. They had been interested in Charlie because they wanted a mellow dog who could go to work with the young man, or sometimes to the Senior Assisted Living Facility, where the young woman worked. Hank totally fit the bill! They report that he has learned many new commands, and totally polite to new people he meets. Undistracted by passing cars, barking dogs, Hank is great on leash. We are so HAPPY for this good boy! He had run out of time at the pound and was sceduled to die. Now he gets to live a full and happy life with his new human companions!! One more reason to adopt a do dog instead of buy from a breeder!!,