There are all kinds of people as we all well know. I'm so glad that this
mixed pit bull/lab puppy landed into the hands of compassionate people
in of all places - a cardboard recyling plant in Greater Cleveland where cardboard is compacted.
When one load of compacted cardboard was emptied from the compactor, the operator couldn't believe what he saw. A little black puppy's head was sticking out of one of the bundles. How did she survive the ramming device of the compactor with 35,000 pounds of pressure on the 6,000 pounds of cardboard which she found herself in the middle of?
I believe God's angels were watching over her. As the compassionate
operator observed - you can do a lot of other things than throwing away a puppy. He said that she was fine except for a sore leg. He also said with a twinkle in his eye that all the fleas died though.
As they already have a cat mascot, they are looking for a new home for her and have made several calls. I think she will easily find a home and with a tale like hers - who would believe it? Her progeny will regale their amazing ancestor's stories for eons. But that will only happen if her part pit bull side survives a "witch hunt" re their breed. Lakewood is but the latest city trying to ban pit bulls.
I am very disappointed in the way cities, states, and even countries are
addressing the pit bull biting problem. Tomorrow, I will be going on local CBS TV for a one minute editorial to thank the director for his compassionate and wise stance for NOT banning pit bulls in Lakewood.
Definitely, people are split on this issue of banning pit bulls in their city.
I am saddened that they are not putting the major blame where it belongs--on the cruel owners. I loved the opinion of one man in the Lakewood Observer whose father is a vet. He didn't mince words and called the owners of pit bulls who are vicious - monsters. He said that if a dog goes wrong - it is the owner--not the dog who is to blame.
How soon we forget that Michael Vick and his friends were found guilty of mistreating and abusing pit bulls and teaching them to be vicious. Some of these mistreated pit bulls had to be put down, but some were rehabilitated and found loving homes where they are happy, content, and NON-VICIOUS.
I guess my views on this subject were concise enough to be accepted for airing on this local CBS station editorial forum. The last time I accepted a TV station's offer to air my views was in 1980. Then my topic was asking the public to write their legislators to support The Research Modernization Act. It would have required written documentation of all animal research to prevent duplication of unnecessary and cruel experimentation. Do you think that the 1980 Congress was wise enough to pass it? Think again. They said it was too costly - but providing lucrative grants of millions and millions of dollars each year to researchers who sometimes repeated the same protocul research was not? I will never understand our Congress people, or maybe I understand them too well.
I am trying to convince Joyce or Vicki to go in my place to the CBS station. I think a younger person would have greater impact. If either accepts this invitation, she will have to read my sentiments which they also concur with anyways:
Descrimination is an ugly word --ask women, blacks, the handicapped and they'll agree. Pit bulls should not be discriminated against either. What we should do is make a law which forbids people from using pit bulls as guard dogs. Under this law, if you train them to be vicious, you will be held responsible - NOT THE DOG. When you punish the offending party, I think there will be less incidences of pit bull biting because the breed is not by nature any more vicious than any other dog. Let's make the real culprit pay and he has TWO not four feet.
And most of all for me- I believe that God didn't make any vicious dogs. We did that all by ourselves.
And lastly, the subject of pit bulls reminded me of one of my episodes in my book --"Blame It on Peaches." There I related the horribly sad story of Duke:
"Some place in southeastern Pennsylvania, Duke, a Dalmation, was given away to three men in their twenties who promised to give him a good home. Instead, they tied him to a tree, taped his jaws shut, then encouraged their pit bull to massacre him. Near death, they then cut Duke's tail and ears off, and finally crushed his skull. Not only was I horrified by what these cruel men did to Duke, but I was also reminded that there are probably a lot of other equally cruel peiople who train thir pit bulls in this same horrible way. They are the ones who are responsible for giving this beautiful breed a very bad but undeserved reputation. It is not their fault that God gave them huge jaws. The fault lies solely with the people who teach the dogs how to use them in a destructive way.
Thank God -there was some justice for Duke. Judge Biester of Philadelphia, PA sentenced these cruel young men to up to three years in jail --something unheard of just a short time ago, when cruel men like these might have gone scot free. When he sentenced them, he said 'Cruelty.... sends a chill of disgust through the community...particularly when it is done to a creature that is basically helpless.'"
Thank you Judge Biester. Would we have more compassionate judges as you. Sadly, Tammy Grimes who saved a chained dog from dying a miserable death was found guilty of theft. The horrible owners were never brought on charges of cruelty.
In Ohio, the Wiles Pig Farm owners were brought up on cruelty charges to animals for "euthanizing" sick piglets by tossing them around like footballs until they suffered crushing lethal blows. Their older sick brothers and sisters were hung high in the air, and these cruel men probably felt it was part of the "entertainment" for the day as they watched these innocent pigs swing in the air helplessly until their life breath was mercifully choked off.
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