Pit bull Speech
By: Cecelia Hartigan
“Oh, I would never adopt a Pit bull”.
I couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of my own Nana’s mouth. I had always known my Nana to be an easy going dog lover, who would love any dog that came her way. Anytime my family was on vacation she would watch my dog along with her two dogs and cats. How could my Nana not know the truth about Pitbulls? After both Brophy and Molly (her two big weimaraners) passed away my Nana was left with a dogless household and was looking in all the local shelters on the Cape for a dog. As my Nana found in the year 2000 in every one out of four shelters Pit bulls and Pit mixes make up more than 20% of the shelter dog population(http://www.aspcapro.org/resource/disaster-cruelty-animal-cruelty-animal-fighting/facts-about-pit-bull-cruelty). I thought my Nana would get any dog that she fell in love with at a shelter and not worry about the breed. I quickly explained to her how Pit bulls are naturally bad and most of the animals in a shelter are probably abused.
I grew up with a 120 pound Weimaraner named Otto and always watched in shock as neighborhood kids would scream and grab their parents to pick them up. I never understood why people were afraid of my dog because he was harmless and I didn’t think he was big at all because I had grown up with him. I never knew that Pit bulls had a bad rap and I never looked at Pit bulls as different from any other dog. A local store owns a Pit bull named Tulip who I would always visit because their store was next to my Dad’s office. I loved visiting Tulip because she was always so sweet and calm.
As I got older I became more aware of the news articles and all the media coverage there was of Pit bulls.
