I've always loved animals, and until recently, I'd always been surrounded by them, be they dogs, cats, rabbits, rats, chickens, or Zebediah, the epileptic parakeet I had when I was ten. When I first struck out on my own in California, after leaving the hippie commune in Berkeley where I used to crash, I found myself suddenly in a critter vacuum, and inexplicably lonely. The companionship of animals is something that can't be duplicated or replaced. I decided to get a dog.Forget breeders and pet-store puppies; I didn't want to buy a dog, I wanted to save one. To give a home to a dog who needed one.
In the Bay Area, animal shelters and rescue agencies are brimming with pit bulls. They're most often overbred, sold to irresponsible owners, and abused or abandoned. No one wants them, even some rescue groups won't touch them, and the people who do take them are often not much better than their old owners. Some of them are the sweetest, most loving dogs, and most of them don't stand a chance.
Pit bulls are the current fashionably demonized breed. People paint them as ruthless monsters who won't hesitate to turn on even the kindest owner. Previously, Dobermans, Rottweilers, Chows, and other breeds have met with the same fate. Pit Bulls were once beloved family animals- watch any old Little Rascals film with "Petey" if you don't believe me.
This isn't just a Bay Area thing, either. In other places, pits get even worse treatment. In Toronto and Denver, they're outright banned. Treasured family pets are being ripped from their homes and destroyed, with no consideration for individual temperament or personality. Pit bull owners have to move, hide their dogs, give them up, or risk losing them.
Breed discrimination is around in more subtle ways, too. Take a closer look at pet-centered advertising some time. Scan print ads that feature a dog and see if even one of them is a pit bull. I'd bet actual money against it.
Back in Atlanta, my former partner worked in an animal hospital. She said fighting dogs were brought in all the time- animals who were beaten and abused, trained since puppyhood to be vicious, brought in because they'd torn each other to shreds- the only life the poor things knew. A lot of these dogs belonged to other employees of the pet hospital (read that again and try to comprehend it), and when pit bull puppies were brought in for adoption, those guys would be the ones to take them. They were doomed. Meanwhile, our good friend was constantly discriminated against because she had a pit bull, too, so people thought she was one of them. Her dog was the sweetest one I'd ever met, and a rescue. I fell in love with that dog and decided I wanted to save one of them one day, to give one the chance nobody else was. A lot of times in my life no one wanted to give me a chance either, but then a few people did. I decided to adopt a pit bull, in part, as a way of paying it forward.
When I explain all this to people, they still say, "But they rescue golden retrievers!" Or Labradors, Poodles, insert-stereotypically-innocuous-dog-breed-here. Why do I have to get a big, bad, scary PIT BULL?
My dog is a furry four-legged angel. The worst she might do is crawl into your lap and lick you to death. But some people don't see her; they just see her breed.
I know what that's like. I've been discriminated against for years, just because of who I am. As a lesbian, I'm denied over 1,000 rights guaranteed to straight couples because I can't legally marry my partner. In some areas, I could still be fired from a job for being gay; in fact, I once was. I could be denied housing, custody of my child, or the right to adopt or foster one. And if someone decided to beat the crap out of me for being queer (again, this has actually happened), in many areas there's no hate-crime legislation to protect me. Some people in some places still get away with using "gay panic" defenses in court!
As a genderqueer person, I'm part of a visible minority. I can't travel under the radar like some gay people can. And many states and cities who do have hate-crime laws have no protections against crimes based on gender identity or expression.
So why this breed, why this dog? She can't help being born a pit bull any more than I can help being born queer. If I didn't look past the circumstances she was born into, I'd be no better than the people who've looked at me all my life and, because of their ignorance, never seen me.
