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Tag Archives: pit bulls
Pittie Reverse Psychology
BuzzFeed published a listicle on Monday entitled “24 Reasons Why No One Should Ever Have A Pit Bull As A Pet” (h/t Alice and others).
Lest you start to get angry at yet another misguided attempt to malign an awesome type of dog, it’s a trick! They love pitties!!! The listed reasons are all along the lines of “They might be too cute!” and “They love hugs too much!”
Sharky (RIP) figures prominently in several of the list items, which is as it should be, because Sharky is awesome and beautiful and wonderful and he will live forever in our hearts!!!!!!!!
Points for Effort, I Guess
Here’s an example of what, to a lawyer, ought to be a patently ridiculous argument, but that also deserves a certain grudging respect for its sheer audacity. This is from a 2009 unpublished decision by the Texas First District Court of Appeals in Houston, Bradley v. Texas:
Appellant, Marcus Andre Bradley, challenges the order of the county court at law denying him the relief that he requested in his application for a writ of habeas corpus. In his sole issue, appellant contends that the State’s prosecution of him for the offense of cruelty to animals, after a justice court had, in a prior proceeding, terminated his ownership of 45 pit bull dogs and ordered him to pay $9,020 to the Houston Humane Society for the boarding and care of the dogs, is barred under the “doctrine[s] of double jeopardy and collateral estoppel.”
We affirm the order of the trial court.
It’s mostly the double jeopardy argument that intrigues me. The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that a person cannot be tried twice for the same offense, but it’s not as simple as it might sound. The government can’t charge you with the same offense if you are acquitted after a trial, or if the case is declared a mistrial after a certain point in the case. That doesn’t apply, though, if one case is criminal and the other isn’t. Continue reading
Pit Bull Awareness Day 2014
This weekend, Love-A-Bull is celebrating Pit Bull Awareness Day with several events. You can learn more about them at their website.*
The main event is Sunday, October 26 at Republic Square Park in downtown Austin.
Here are some scenes from last year, including the always-effervescent Coco Puffin:
An Authority on Pitties
A Companion to the End, and Further
A pit bull named Cletus walked the stage at Idaho State University’s commencement ceremony last week, in place of his human. Cletus is a service dog, who was there on behalf of Joshua Kelly with Joshua’s father.
Commencement is always a special time, but for one family, Saturday’s Idaho State University graduation ceremony was especially meaningful.
Their son was not there to receive the degree he worked so hard for. Instead, his faithful service dog walked in his place.
More than 2,000 graduates were celebrating their hard work of years, energy and sacrifice. Among all the feet were some paws that stood out.
Cletus, a black pit bull, would have been at graduation anyway this year.
“I’ll be honest,” said Joshua Kelly’s father, Terrell. “I was one of them that was giving (pit bulls) a bad rep until I met Cletus. And he allows our little grandchildren to climb on him, pull his ears, pull his tail. He’s just great.”
But the person Cletus is missing is the one he was trained to help.
“Josh had epilepsy,” his father said. “This was Josh’s last semester. He was taking his final two classes when he ended up in intensive care in February.”
Joshua Kelly passed away Feb. 13.
Terrell said EMS crews in Idaho Falls found Josh on the side of the road or on someone’s lawn numerous times with Cletus standing over him.
He said the pair would get on the bus at 6:30 from Idaho Falls to ISU, which meant a two-mile walk both ways. But it was worth it.
Go get some Kleenex if you need. The video from the local news station isn’t embeddable, but here’s another video showing the event.
Pitties Get Some Online Love
I came across an article on a site called Dognotebook.com entitled “15 dangerous dog breeds most likely to turn on their owners,” with no attributed author. You can probably guess who tops the list.
The post is a long litany of bullshit, but that’s not why I mention it. About 19/20 of the comments range from “This is bullshit” to “Here are researched and peer-reviewed facts about dogs that debunk everything you have said in this article.” It’s a good thing to see.
Not cool, Onion
Screw You, Belfast
The city of Belfast, Northern Ireland has killed Lennox for looking like a pit bull. The Dog Files has had excellent coverage of the situation. I have nothing constructive to contribute, so I’ll just let them speak:
It is with great sadness that I must tell you that the Belfast City Council in Northern Ireland has officially given word that they have murdered Lennox on this morning of July 11, 2012.
Despite million of pleas from millions across the world, including their own bosses. Despite Victoria Stilwell, host of Animal Planet’s It’s Me Or The Dog, offering to pay for Lennox to come live in the USA, the Belfast City Council killed Lennox.
And because they are such nice folk, they wouldn’t even let Lennox’s human family, the Barnes, see him one last time or at least get his body. They said they will send them ashes in the mail. Some say that this is because the Belfast City Council had already killed Lennox a while ago. No one will ever know unless they have an official investigation and after seeing how Belfast is run, I’m not putting money on that happening.
If you are unfamiliar with Lennox and the Barnes Family story you can read about it here.
You can support the movement to get rid of breed-specific legislation (BSL) here:
- Stop BSL
- Love-A-Bull’s BSL resource page