I have a new foster dog.  His name is Charming.  

As a volunteer at a large municipal shelter, it is my great joy in life to meet and get to know hundreds of dogs.  Some I get to know better than others.  And some I see and hear about from other volunteers and staff, that really need to get out of the shelter for various reasons.  Some dogs have an easier time being at a shelter and becoming institutionalized essentially.  But all need love and it affects them in different ways, physically, emotionally and behaviorally.   The stress and loneliness can be too much for many.  

Charming is one of the many dogs I have spent extra time with, often at off-site adoption events where I might spend 5+ hours with group of dogs, usually having one or two I hold on leash for hours, talk to, cuddle, introduce people to.  Or sometimes I see the dog with another volunteer and I can just watch them in action.  

What impressed me about Charming is that he was very relaxed around everyone he meets.  Small children too.  I watched him the first day I met him licking the faces of two other male dogs he just met, also up for adoption.  He didn't show any possession over toys.   He took treats gently.   He didn't get over excited.  He sometimes rolled on his back for a good belly rub and a stretch.  

I also found out how he jumps in the kennel at the shelter, banging his head on the bars at the top.  This boy can jump!  And he was so incredibly stressed out that the only outlet for his energy was to jump and jump and jump.  I saw the scabs and wounds and scars on his head, and knew this guy really needed out of the shelter.  I also found out he had been in the shelter since last summer when he was found as a stray at about 10 months of age. 

I had the pleasure of holding him on leash for the majority of the day at an outside event on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in front a pet store.  There were 4 dogs in total outside and several cats that spent the day inside the store in cages.  Charming was incredible.  Sometimes events can be stressful for dogs, especially for an isolated suburban shelter dog at an event on a busy Manhattan street!  Charming really loved the city.   Twice I took him for walks and once another volunteer Lori and I walked him up to Central Park, on the first nice day we had after the brutal winter.  The park was covered in people on blankets, people biking and running by, horses walking by!  Charming loved it, was very relaxed, took it all in.  On the streets he walked easily by other dogs.  The only thing confusing him a lot was that the trees on the streets all had little gates around the tiny grassy areas and he didn't know where to pee.  Suburban dogs rarely pee on concrete!  The other thing that happened a lot that day is that I had to explain to people why Charmings head had all those scabs and wounds on it.  A lot of people thought that they were cigarette burns. 

I am very excited to be starting a pit bull rescue called Get A Bull with my my fellow animal rescue friend and it was on that day that I knew we had to get this guy out of the shelter.  At the same time, my eldest dog Cy was sick and I knew I wanted to get a foster dog as soon as possible but I also knew that it wouldn't be fair to stress out a dying dog by bringing a foster dog into the house.   Just a few weeks later Cy was gone.  I grieved for a week, saw that my two girls were doing pretty good despite a couple little signs of grieving for a day or two, and 10 days later I brought Charming to the house, ten months after he first arrived at the shelter.

Charming is very much a foster dog and there is no possibility that I would be keeping him.  I say this because everyone asks me that!  I think he's a loving, good natured, beautiful dog that is going to make the right family very happy and he is in my home because I am trying to help him.  He is doing very well after a week here, really exceeding all my expectations.  The rest of my pets, especially my dog Rory, is not ready to have him integrated into the family, and she may never.   Cookie I think would love to wrestle with Charming all day but we are taking things slow.   Charming is way too interested in chasing cats to live in a home with cats.  I have two cats.  Charming has a guest room that is all his.  And he spends most of his time in that room, sometimes in the crate with the door open and sometimes loose with door closed.  When I take him outside quite a few times a day, I walk him through the house on leash and then he does his business and sometimes runs like crazy in the backyard.  He has a beautiful run!   I sit with him on the screened in porch.  We take a long walk together first thing in the morning before work.  He chews on a lot of stuffed kongs to keep him busy, bully sticks and nylabones.    Sometimes he'll cry for a couple of minutes when I leave him but he stops very quickly.  There are definitely a couple of training issues to be worked on including mouthiness which has already improved and basic obedience, but he is a pretty kickass houseguest, he has had not one accident and he sleeps quietly through the night in his crate which is the best!   My heart swells with joy to know that Charming will never see the inside of an animal shelter again.  

Charming is almost 2 years old and will be available for adoption soon via Get A Bull.  He is a pit bull/hound mix with incredible eyes.  He is located in Long Island, NY.  Email getabullrescue.com for more information.

Once upon a time I was a normal person with one dog and two cats.  One night I was sitting on the couch, wasting time on facebook as I am known to do, when I saw a posting from someone about an elderbull named Cypha at the NYC ACC.  The post was via a page on facebook called "Urgent Part 2" which is made up of volunteers who advocate on behalf of the dogs of death row in the New York City shelter system.  It's a crazy world unto itself where every night they post "the list" of the dogs scheduled to be killed the following day, and rescue groups, people called "cross-posters" and just concerned citizens, share, pledge and try to rescue as many of those dogs as possible.  Cypha was an 8 year old dog who had been within the ACC system for an unheard of 3 months and who had managed to survive "the list" a couple of times, and had been transferred at one point from the Brooklyn shelter to what is considered the safer shelter in Staten Island.  

I had had the thought of rescuing a senior male pit and on that particular night as I looked at Cypha's face and read his profile I thought, sure, let's go for it.  They said he was a mellow guy but there was no information as to whether he could live with cats.  He had been surrendered due to "landlord issues" which is a sad and common story due to discriminatory housing policies against pit bulls but also other large dogs.   This is a link to his original posting.  I asked a few questions, was put in touch with a wonderful woman named Jackie who volunteered at the SI shelter and had met Cypha, and she put me in touch with a rescue group who would "pull him" for me on a foster to adopt basis (just in case the whole cat thing didn't work out).  

I did the necessary paperwork, reference checks, home check etc and Cypha was scheduled to be neutered and then delivered to me in a few days.  I ended up picking him up unneutered because a hurricane was headed our way and they were evacuating the SI shelter and moving all the dogs to Brooklyn.  I made a plea and was able to pick him up the morning before the storm hit.   My Mom and I drove to Staten Island and I will never forget the first time I saw him.  He was bigger and stronger than I thought, and after 3 mos in the shelter he was a little bit shut down and afraid to look at me. 

We headed back to Long Island with Cy (I decided to just shorten up his name) and in the car he ignored me but at one point made eye contact with my Mom.  We got home and did a very rushed intro with Rory out in the street, transitioned to the backyard and fortunately, they took to each other right away!  Here they are during the hurricane watching out the front door as the rain was picking up.   We still kept a leash on Cy for a few days and seperated them when I wasn't home etc but they never had an issue these two.

Now acclimating Cy with my two cats at the time Henry and Jake was a whole other issue, one that I will write about in another post because teaching dogs to live with cats is something I have done twice now.  I will say that it was 2 month process in which for the safety of the cats, Cy was kept separate from them.  Today I can say both Cy and Rory could give two shits about cats in the house and truthfully, they are afraid of them!   

Fast forward now 2 1/2 years and my old man is about 11 years old.  He is one of the great loves of my life for sure and while I wish he had never lost his home in the first place, I am so grateful he came into my life.  He is a smart, stable, loving dog and the favorite among most of my female houseguests.  In particular he has stolen the heart of our petsitter Beth who considers him to be a son.  He now has another baby sister Cookie who adores him and doesn't leave him alone for a second.  He loves to share food with me (when he first came home he was very leery of people food) and eats everything from kale stalks to bananas, pizza crusts, cherry tomatoes, carrots and his favorite, peanut butter.  He loves to lick the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and he loves taking a walk in the morning with his two sisters.  He follows me from room to room no matter what, even when I vacuum.  When we go to the vet all the vet techs come out into the waiting room to say hi to him.  

Sadly my old man has been battling stage 3 mast cell tumors for about 6 months now and he's finally starting to slow down.  He is so strong and tough, and aside from the giant tumor he has right now you would think he is a young guy.   I will write a post about cancer someday soon but for now just wanted to tell you all about my boy, and ask you if you can to say a prayer for him.   I also want to encourage anyone reading this to consider adopting a senior dog.  As much as I love my young guys, adopting a senior is such a gift.  A gift to the dog you rescue but also a gift and blessing for your life.  

Hi, and welcome to I Have a Pit Bull!
Here is a photo of me, oh a hundred years ago or so, with the very first pit bull I got to know and become bonded to.  I don't even think I knew enough at the time to think about what breed he was.  I just knew he was strong, tough to walk (but I was good at it,) and very sweet to me.  To me he was just a dog and I was so happy to spend time with him.  This was at the time I was living on my own in an apartment in Queens, I was not allowed to have a dog, but I was craving the companionship of one.  I saw an ad somewhere for volunteer dog walkers needed, I made a call, and 13 years later (there I said it) I'm still at it.  
Flash-forward to my life now, I have been volunteering in animal rescue all this time, working with all kinds of dogs and even some cats.  But it is the pit bull dog that pulls at my heart strings and is most in need.  Here in Long Island, NY and surrounding, the shelters are filled with pit bulls.  This is not an exaggeration, in the shelter where I am currently volunteering, there are about 140-150 dogs at any time and maybe 10-15 are not pit bulls.  I have had people to say to me, why are there only pit bulls in the shelter?  Doesn't that prove what bad dogs they are?  That's not even close to being the truth.  The truth is that most of these dogs come into the shelter due to no fault of their own, mostly as strays.  Backyard breeding is rampant here on LI and the most popular dog for breeding seems to be the pit bull.  They have become a bizarre status symbol and many keep them chained in their yards as a symbol of their masculinity or I don't know what.  Spay and neuter in my opinion is the solution to this problem.  The more pit bull dogs and dogs in general that are spayed and neutered, the less dogs we will have in our shelters.  Of course adoption vs. buying and breeding dogs is also part of the solution.  
I will be rambling on about all this stuff as this blog takes form.  This is just a quick intro to why I started this blog.  There is much more to come.  In addition to the serious stuff, I really want to celebrate pit bulls here, brag about my dogs, let other people brag about their dogs with some guest posts, talk about special dogs looking for homes, and talk about issues that interest pit bull guardians and dog guardians in general.  Excited to get this baby off the ground as it is been ruminating in my head for a long time.  Thanks for reading!