I seem to have taken on the roll of volunteer to save the worlds Pitbulls. I send at least an hour each night asking someone to help. I know we cannot save each and every one, but if we can save just one or two of them, then we have accomplished a great service to animals.
Hurricane Sandy has brought the issue to a forefront though. How many families will have to lose their dogs, their family friend, because they will not be able to find a place to live in the interim, because the breed of the pet? Imagine, Its the 50's in the deep south , and grandma is an african american. You have lost your house, your belongings, and all of the things you have held dear, but you are not a African American. So you get to live, but grandma is put behind bars and you leave knowing she may not make it out alive, because her skin color is different.
Shocking thought huh. But the difference is its grandma, and she is not an animal. Now, imgaine how you would feel if grandma just looked like an African American? She wasn't really one, but she did have dark skin, and so you lost her because of the color of her skin? There are many people who do not think of their animals as pets but as family members, and now we are saying pick one or the other.
Why, because someone said they are bad. Not because they are by their nature bad, but because someone said it. And once it has been said it must be true. Francis Jeffrey said "Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence." There are some who say this breed was only designed to kill, to maim, to fight. The proponents of this will do everything within their means to prove pitbulls are killers, even to the extent of saying a dog is one after an attack, though the DNA proves otherwise. The same dogs are service dogs, family pets, companions, but you do not hear about the lives they save or the undying loyalty of the dog, because big news doesn't make money off good news.
We do not say everyone who comes from Columbia, South America has something to do with drugs, we judge the person, not where they came from, or what they look like,but when it comes to the look of dog, any dog, who someone decides is pitbull, whether the DNA backs it up or not, it is assumed by many the dog is going to hurt, maim, or kill someone.
Mahatma Ghandi said "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated... I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man." If this is true then we as a nation have fallen from being a great nation, we do not spare the lives of animals, we do not go out and fight for them. There are few laws which protect them from atrocities at the hands of humans. If we are to become more, then we must as a nation, not judge, or discriminate, but educate, train, and learn to love the differences.
It all starts with a single step.
1-open the cage door
2-attach the leash
3-take the animal home
4-share your life and love
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