The Google alerts have been bringing way too many stories of pit bulls tortured: This week in Seattle, a dog was tied to a cement block and tossed into a river to drown. And in Alberta, Canada, another was doused in gasoline and burned nearly to death. What cruel bastards we humans can be.We've been noticing an increase in burn injuries on dogs over the past 5 or so years. In many cases, the burns walk down the backbone, as if someone poured butane and lit a match. This back belongs to BR dog Deja Blu by the way. Like a lightening bolt that you can see with closed eyes, it's hard for me to look at this without seeing the flames. Thankfully, she doesn't seem especially sensitive there, and her new home more than makes up for that hellish moment ... In fact, outside of tending her with salves & sunscreen, the scar is barely on their radar: What's done is done.
While burns like Deja's seem intentional - and may be connected with a gang initiation or some other form of cruel dare-you game - another common pattern shows up as random burns scattered & dotted all around dogs' bodies. It's not a coincidence that these injuries are increasing right along with the number of meth lab-related burns coming into ERs all over the country. Just another way that pit bulls silently reflect the social ills of the two-legged animals.
RESILIENCE 2 : an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change
Ted Baby
In the face of cruelty, you just have to keep on trucking....
Vick dog #5 gave us a big happy by leaving to his foster/adopt home today. Teddles - who may choose to ignore you unless you call him Ted BAY-BEE - will have a new sister dog and a devoted family with happy plans that include helping him earn his Therapy Dog title. Amazingly, his new mom Cindy didn't know he was a Vick dog when she applied to adopt him. Ha!
Ted's foster mom Christine told her son Sam this morning that "Ted doesn't live with us anymore." GULP I can't imagine what a two year old brain does with that kind of information, but we're so grateful that he gave Ted the last 8 months of his life. Thank you kindly, little Sam.
Ted stole my heart completely in VA during a pre-roadtrip bath out on the shelter lawn. He was too big and dorky to be a fighting dog and is one of the biggest clowns you can imagine. We had the good fortune of watching him for a few days recently and loved every minute. Here's a quick clip of Tim enjoying him in the morning. Notice Ted wince about mid-way through when Tim raises his hand with the toy. Somebody in his past heavy handed this guy. Like Deja, he keeps on keeping on.
13 comments:
Love the Ted Baby video. I was so hoping that Christine and family would adopt Teddles so he and Sam could stay together, but I'm happy for his new mom too. He reminds me so much of my dog in that video. ;)
Sadly, we're seeing more and more dogs come into Los Angeles shelters with burns down their backs. It is beyond awful. Sick and soul-less people are abusing and torturing these innocent creatures and yet pit bulls are supposed to be the vicious ones?!?!?! We have much to learn from these special dogs...
Burning butane? That's eff'd up. Makes me wish that we could punish "and eye for an eye" sometimes. (Not that the degenerate who performed the act is caught 9 times out of 10 I bet.)
Jackelyn? .. are you seeing the burns on certain breeds or coats colors over others? We're seeing this on blue* pit bulls over all other colors or breeds. Fad dogs, fad colors. Good forbid they start on the chihuahuas because they won't survive this.
I notice the burn trend skyrocketed all over the country at about the same time. Like a sick hundredth monkey phenomena.
How does this tragic "let's burn dogs with butane, etc" message get popularized in so many places at once? It's hard to understand.
those burns are just horrifying... what possesses people to do such things????
And what on earth possessed Vick to acquire dogs like Teddles (and the other apparently non-fighting dogs who seem to be such wacky goofballs). It looks like the saved survivors include a couple of apparent fighters, those sadly fearful ones that were apparently breeding machines and some apparent survivors of other kinds of abuse. And then there are the dogs now known as Teddles, Johnny J etc.
Could Vick possibly have had some of the pit bulls as pets???
First the Downer in Seattle:
By coincidence I was wearing my LawDog T:
"Ban Stupid People - not Dogs"
when that story hit the alerts, and not surprised BadRap reacted with as much distaste and concern. Great blogg and comments, but the social situation need some more comments.
So, THESE CRIMES are not about the breed or the Deja Blu's, however I fear BSL promotion can be an advertisement, a TARGET mark.
Prejudice and BSL become a basis for these actions. When talking about banning breeds even if not in-acted, it turn them into the LOWEST Class of Animals - available not only for disposal but treatment as vermin and targets for misguided torture.
Sad to say that it is those ‘type’ of starter sick-kids who they say in crime journals begin with animals and graduate to becoming our worst criminals with cruel handling towards children and family. We need to elevate the attention to these crimes and persecute to the full extend of the law, including public floggin’ in blogs.
We are not talking about Dog Fighting Pro-jocks with 60+ dogs. We are talking about those <50 demented in each of our major cities that feel a need to propagate their behavior making it into gang initiations or treating it like nothing more than pulling wings off of grasshoppers.
In the county we'd round-up the Posse, to find and hold those responsible. Thank goodness the cities have thought of a better way to Educate and Inspire: (http://www.possefoundation.org/)
We have the opportunity and responsibility fill-up the 'non-criminal' youth leaders with all the learning and motivation to show them there is a better way to treat those who are victims of prejudice.
Boris' OEL
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The above makes ones heart go-out even stronger to Sam and his generation. They want to freely open-up and pour their hearts out to dogs like Ted-Baby and Boris-Baby. Also, foster homes are special kind of families in their inspiring way. It takes great APBT tenacity and spirit to hand-off the ones we love to another for care.
Teddles, as noticeable as your butt markings, your heart has been "tatt'ed" with your Fosters' love and Sam's kisses. FFAF (Foster Families are Forever)!
Christine, you have a safety net bigger then you could ever imagine and don't hesitate to call upon them.
Always Sam's,
Boris-Baby
Wow. I get to see Deja Blu everyday. Looking at her scar on the computer brought tears to my eyes. I guess even though I see that scar everyday (yes, lots of sunscreen),I don't see it. I see her...my playmate, running partner and snuggle bunny.
I don't know what monsters did this to her, and they should hope I never know. I will totally kick their A$$!
I cannot put into words how gentle and loving this dog is. She LOVES people. One on one, in groups, at parades-she loves us anytime/any place. A person did hurt her bad and all she has is love and patience. She is better than me.
Thanks to the BR volunteers, I have the perfect dog! To think, some would have never given her a chance.
There are so many other Deja's out there. Snif snif.
When I read the article for the story about the 18 month old puppy burned (it was actually in British Columbia, not Alberta) I cried. Then once I started to read the comments people left I got angry. I can't stand that people think these amazing dogs deserve this just because of their breed. I really hope justice is served even though I highly doubt it will. Instead I will go home every single day and give my pittie a kiss on the head and a cuddle to let her know she is loved.
At the moment we have two burn survivors here in the Berkeley Shelter, one Pittie mix and one Chi mix, both black/dark brown. Surprisingly, the Chi mix (Trooper) didn't miss a beat. He's been barking non-stop since he hit the kennels. _Not_ surprisingly, the APBT mix (Bo) is also recovering fast. As I write this, he is just coming back from a two mile run with a volunteer. Both dogs are burned across the withers and back, but not in the lightning bolt pattern -- ours look like burning liquid was poured on them. On the other hand, the Chi came in during the wee hours of July 5th, so some of us suspect fireworks. Too horrible to imagine.
We are seeing this in New Orleans as well. We are trying to find how the burn like scare is being done. The most common responce is "a tail pipe burn from a car."
However, it seems to be occuring more and more, and only to pitbulls. If you have any information that may be helpfull or know of any other websites that have information please let me know. This has to STOP!!! Thanks
Burns even on puppies....
At the Houston dog show, the Beaumont Lab rescue group saw my T-shirt and dragged me over to show me a picture of one of their foster 'exceptions' that they picked-up earlier in the year.
No macho excuse to doing a burn on a big bad dog, these burns were on a 'blue' 4 month old puppy. All I could think of was Donna's comments that maybe these were dogs in a crystal-meth lab trailer. How the burn went down the back along the spine did look more deliberate than a spill.
However it happened, the whoever are real sick and must be on drugs to be that violent and careless.
I'm searching to get the WEB page and pass along the details.
Makes me proud to see a Lab Rescue lady's heart go out to an APBT.
Boris' OEL
These "mowhawk burns" are not meth-lab accidents...
The morbid answer here is that it was (most likely) done with a can of Ronsonol-type lighter fluid, the kind used in Zippo-type lighters. This fuel is basically KEROSENE, not butane (butane is a gas). The narrow burn indicates a thin stream, which is exactly what a can of this type of lighter fluid squirts. {Barbecue starter is very similar but the cans squirt out more liquid than this.
Fortunately, Pit Bulls are as tough mentally/emotionally as they are physically, as they must be to recover from things like this.
If I ever saw someone do this to a dog, I would be the one in jail, if you know what I'm saying.
The Bible was on to something with that "eye for an eye" line.
Heinous animal cruelty should be an "A" felony (like murder), especially as it is a psychological symptom of much deeper sociopathic behaviour.
Rather than wrongly thinking that a dog-aggressive pit bull will turn on humans, we should look at all the real evidence of how animal-cruel people next turn their evil toward other humans.
When I am dictator, dog fight promotion will be punishable by being dipped in bacon grease, rolled in opossum fur and thrown to a bunch of overly-aroused terriers.
I am happily owned by a Pit named Liza and I could never imagine having any other breed. She is the most loving loyal friend in this world and like I read somewhere on the site she does love to get under the covers too. People who torture these animals, I believe are reserved a special place in hell or at least should be. At the very least the "Golden Rule" should be applied to them and the torture done to them. God bless the misunderstood.
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