Posts tagged "PitBull"

Westminster-winning Sadie's got nothing on Prince. The three-legged pit-bull mix won "Best in Show" at a shelter dog talent competition at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The two-year-old wowed the crowd at the New York City event by catching three baseballs thrown by his handler/pitcher.

Prince's major league talent won over the judges, who included singer-songwriter Roberta Flack, actress Bernadette Peters, ballroom dance champion and So You Think You Can Dance choreographer Melanie LaPatin, and Assistant Director of ASPCA Humane Law Enforcement Joseph Pentangelo.

Prince lost his leg after being hit by a car, but Gail Buchwald, Senior Vice President of the ASPCA Adoption Center, said Prince's disability doesn't hold him back. "The talent show demonstrates the resilience of these wonderful dogs," Buchwald also said, "but the real prize will be finding their two-legged soul mates and homes to call their own." Yes, Prince and the other competition contestants are up for adoption. Visit ASPCA.org to learn more about adding him to your team!

The "Dog Whisperer" Cesar Millan is mourning the death of his cherished pit bull, Daddy, who passed away on Feb. 19 at the age of 16. He died peacefully surrounded by the family that loved him: Millan, his wife Ilusion and their young sons, Andre and Calvin.

Daddy was a familiar face on Millan's show, "The Dog Whisperer" on the National Geographic Channel, where his calm-submissive presence set an example for troubled canines and their owners seeking help. Daddy, the gentlest of pit bulls, was "one of the most loyal, trusting, well-balanced, and influential pit bull ambassadors the world has ever known," states a memorial on Millan's Web site.

Speaking with Paw Nation last year, Millan explained that Daddy wasn't as active as he had once been. "You can see the age crawling in," Millan told Paw Nation. "It's the body -- especially his back legs -- so he gets acupuncture twice a week; he swims every day; walks every day; and eats great meals for his digestion." Anticipating the inevitable, Millan last year added a new pit bull puppy to his pack, Junior, to train with Daddy and become his protege.

But as much as one prepares for the death of a beloved pet, it is never easy. Especially when there exists a special relationship, as Millan admits he had with Daddy. "[Daddy] saw me get married, how I changed when I became a dad, my children growing up, and the ups and downs along the way," Millan said in an interview last year. He is more than a member of my family -- he is a member of my life."

Rest in peace, Daddy.

In July, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Attorney's office, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Humane Society of Missouri and other agencies worked together to pull off the largest dog fighting raid in U.S. history. To fully do the job of investigating and persecuting dog fighting into extinction, many, many more such large-scale stings will need to happen. But as a revealing Time article points out, to do so would mean overcoming a host of obstacles that most police organizations are not yet equipped to handle.

"Busting a breeder means taking custody of the dogs, yet no police department or sheriff's office has the resources to kennel, treat and attempt to rehabilitate dozens, let alone hundreds, of abused animals," writes David von Drehle in the Time article.

After the Missouri raid, authorities suddenly had about 470 (some estimated more than 500) dogs on their hands -- vicious dogs that required immediate rehousing, followed by weeks of long-term rehabilitation. The dogs were seized not just in Missouri, but also in Illinois, Iowa, Texas and Oklahoma, according to the Humane Society of Missouri, which was helped in the months of planning leading up to the raid by countless animal-rights groups.

The Humane Society of Missouri lined up an abandoned warehouse, outfitted with triage areas and hundreds of wire cages, located in an undisclosed location in St. Louis. Why undisclosed?

As a spokesperson for the Humane Society of Missouri says in this video, "It is a secret facility because dog fighters are very dangerous people, and we have some serious concerns for the safety of our staff and the volunteers that are here, and also for the dogs. Many of these dogs are worth thousands of dollars."

Ultimately, a U.S. District Court will determine the fate of each dog: whether to be adopted out to an individual; to be sent to a rehabilitation facility; or perhaps, one imagines, to be euthanized. Which brings up yet another important question: Can a rescued attack dog ever be fully accepted into a home, a neighborhood or a society without it having to endure a lifelong stigma?

We sure hope so.

In the newest issue of Cesar's Way magazine -- on newsstands Dec. 1 -- famed "Dog Whisperer" Cesar Millan pens a touching article about finding the right pit-bull puppy to follow in the large, calm paw prints left by Millan's beloved pit bull, Daddy. "Daddy is 15, which means he's getting old," writes Millan in the article. "I've known for a while that I would have to adopt another pit bull."

Millan describes how he took Daddy to the home of a friend whose female pit bull had a litter of two-month-old pups. One puppy caught Millan's attention right away. The pup was adorable -- all gray with a bit of white on his chest -- and his "calm energy" impressed Millan. But how would Daddy respond to the gray puppy?

"You wouldn't believe how well it went!" writes Millan. "The puppy immediately lowered his head, surrendering to the older dog and allowing him to smell him all over."

With Daddy's stamp of approval, the gray pup joined Millan's pack and was anointed -- what else? -- Junior. "Since he was already settling into his role as Daddy's protege, we decided to call him Junior," Millan explains in the article.

Junior has already made his television appearance on the current season of National Geographic's "The Dog Whisperer," appearing in an episode dedicating to raising a good puppy. Check Junior out in this video.