Not Fair At All

For the record, I love our new little town. It's a great place full of warm, friendly people.

Unfortunately, they're misled.

We got our stuff up here, found a house we want to live in forever, moved into it and were getting fully settled into our new life.

And then I got a knock on my front door.

No one uses the front door here. This is the kind of community where only strangers and solicitors use the front door. So, when someone knocked on my front door, I knew it wasn't something I wanted to deal with.

I was right.

It was a sheriff's deputy.

Turns out, pit bulls are illegal in our little town! We were going to have to get rid of our sweet Pirate Wench Puppy! If we had known this before we moved here, we would have looked for a home outside city limits. And we did make an effort to find out before we moved - and couldn't find anything. I sobbed in front of the deputy - thankfully, I can blame pregnancy hormones for not being in better control of myself.

I called my mom because I always call my mom when I'm upset about things. She suggested that I call my dad and see if he would be willing to take our dog. Our sweet girl has issues with a lot of people. The guy we bought her from was obviously planning on training her to be mean - the kind of pit bull you read about in the paper. So she has a hard time trusting people - especially men. But she has adored my dad from the first time she met him. He's just got a way with animals - they know he has a very gentle spirit. So I was completely relieved when my dad agreed to take our little girl - in fact, he was so upset himself about the circumstances that I could hear him choking up over the phone.

Our recent trip to Montana was a very painful one because it meant we had to say goodbye to this sweet girl.

Dad calls me a couple times a week to fill me in on what's going on with her.

Meanwhile, this isn't over. We're going to fight to get our girl back! Communities all over the country are discovering that Breed Specific Laws don't work. The criminals just switch to a different dog breed. In fact, there are 25 different breeds of dogs that LOOK like pits, but they don't qualify. And just as the majority of pit bulls are sweet, gentle dogs, there are plenty of different dogs that are dangerous dogs. A Dangerous Dog law makes more sense - it deals with dogs on an individual basis. I could see getting rid of our girl if she had bitten someone, but she hasn't. She's barked at people, sure. The move was hard on her. And just as we were getting her used to her new home and territory, we had to change everything for her all over again.

It's not fair for her that she had to be taken away from her loving family. She doesn't understand why she had to be taken away from us. And it's not fair for us to have to lose a perfectly sweet dog.

Hopefully, it won't take too long to get it turned around. It's going to take a lot of knowledge, and lot of information, and a lot of work. But I'm not stopping until this law is changed. There are other pit bulls in this town. Why they haven't been told (yet) that they have to get rid of their dogs, I'm not sure. But I don't want to see another family have to lose their beloved pets just because of a pointless law.