Results tagged “BAD RAP” from Petfinder Blog

October 25 is Pit Bull Awareness Day, so in its honor, we're highlighting a group doing amazing things for Pits: BAD RAP, which stands for Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls.

The San Francisco-based organization provides rescue services as well as extensive educational opportunities.

BAD RAP made national news last year when it was called in to evaluate 48 dogs from the Michael Vick case. Several groups stepped forward to foster the dogs, and 10 Pits came back to the Bay Area with BAD RAP. The dogs' amazing progress is detailed in the group's Vick Dog Blog.

In addition to its hands-on rescue work, BAD RAP offers a gamut of services to the local community as well as to animal welfare professionals. Most notably, it offers weekly Pit Ed classes to help educate the parents of these special dogs. According to the BAD RAP mission, Pit Ed participants "learn basic handling skills, dealing with breed traits and responsible ownership protocol."

In 2005 I visited Denver. It happened to be the week the Pit Bull ban's grandfather period ended. In other words, Pit Bulls were illegal to own and as of that week, any Pit Bull in the city was a target for seizure and euthanasia.

As I stood in the shelter that morning, slackjawed and humbled, rows upon rows of Pit Bulls looked back at me. We had the same expression on our faces: "This is all wrong. There has been a terrible mistake."

I thought, "These are owned animals; loving family members." I imagined them feeling, "I have a home; I love my family."

These Pit Bulls had been seized from their homes, without provocation on their part, as part of a city-wide cleansing. Other than being, ostensibly, Pit Bulls, most of the seized dogs had done nothing wrong other than living within the city limits of a town with a breed ban.

Breed bans are troublesome for many reasons.

• They detract from the very real issues of dangerous dogs and irresponsible owners.
• They are applied haphazardly, based on looks alone.
• They criminalize, for no good reason, an entire segment of the population -- those folks who have adopted Pit Bulls and, in many cases, Pit mixes.
• They lend an air of credibility to myths about Pit Bulls. (Pit Bull jaws CANNOT "lock"!)

And, on a more philosophical level, Pit Bull bans smack of dangerous thinking.

Bay Area pit bull group BAD RAP pointed out this great article and audio slideshow in the Washington Post about the Michael Vick dogs in their new homes. It's a great antidote to the recent news about the sad death of female Vick dog 7.