How, In Writing One Good Dog, I Inadvertently Became A Pit Bull Advocate

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By Susan Wilson for The Huffington Post

I have never been afraid of dogs. I’ve been a collie fancier, a dog show fan; and the kind of kid that missed my dog instead of my parents when staying with my grandmother. I’m that annoying person who comes up to you and wants to pet your dog. There was only one type of dog that I never approached, and when the subject came up on town meeting floor, I added my voice to the vote requiring their owners to restrict them behind tall fences. That fear wasn’t based on any actual experience, but on the stories of attacks on children and owners and I, like many, accepted the conventional wisdom that pit bulls were bred mean and are unpredictable. When a friend’s teenage wannabe gangsta son came home with a full grown pit bull, I told her that her insurance rates would go up and that she might even be denied homeowner’s insurance. The dog went back.

The day that I picked out my tan and white puppy from a litter of ‘terrier mixes’ born in a southern shelter and imported north, I noticed that two of the four puppies were smooth-haired and lantern-jawed. They looked like, gasp, pit bulls. I had a moment of buyer’s regret, thinking that this cute little Jack Russell-like dog was actually a pit bull cross with wire hair. I discretely smoothed out her beard until I was satisfied that her jaw was narrow and her muzzle long. I sure didn’t want my insurance rates to go up.

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