The Change in a Pit

It has been almost two years of being a Pit Bull owner, and the change in our dog Buddy is amazing. Currently Buddy is living with his grandma, for the time being we can only have one dog, and since she lives on a ranch, we thought Buddy would love it. We get pictures almost every week, and it is amazing, half the time I can’t even believe that it is the same puppy. We get pictures of him sleeping with other dogs…we couldn’t even get him to sleep with us…and pictures of him sleeping with his “aunts,” my boyfriends sisters.

As of now my boyfriend and I have realized that 9 x’s out of 10 we will not be getting Buddy back. The girls are absolutely infatuated with him, and he is completely obsessed with them. Although this makes me sad, because it was only ment to be temporary, I think it has turned into a good thing. Not only has Buddy picked up some great habits (like sleeping ha) but he is meeting new friends. One of his best friends is the family pig…in which it seems to be a love hate relationship…Buddy loves to run around and play with he pig, but has no interest in going anywhere near him.

Through out all of my posts I have said that owning a Pit Bull has made me a changed person. I have become so defensive, and will defend a Pit Bull to anyone, but not only has Buddy turned out to amaze me, but I have amazed myself.

Hope you all have a great week

Just some simple lovin…

So at the moment I am doing an internship in which I can’t have either of my puppies with me and I miss them terribly, but being in Chicago there are Pit Bulls everywhere …so I thought I would relive when we first got our big ball of joy!

When Aron and I adopted Buddy I was living in St. Louis doing another internship and Aron just happened to be up visiting me.  At this time Aron had plans to come up the next weekend, so it seemed silly for him to take Buddy back with him…so I kept him for the first week.  Buddy’s first week was a little intense…I lived in a loft on the second floor, so whenever I took Buddy out I would have to carry him up and down the steps (because of course this scary pit bull was scared of the steps).  The first dog that Buddy came into contact with he was terrified of…this dog was a pug.  Buddy didn’t understand the meaning of a water bowl…he more or less liked picking it up, dumping the water out, and carrying around the bowl.  Not only did be not understand the water bowl but the pee pad too…he thought it was a bed and he was supposed to go right next to it (good thing I had concrete floors)!One of my favorite things about Buddy when he was a puppy was that he slept…ALL THE TIME!!

Now he wont lay down for a second unless he has a bone…

Big Boy Phase = failed!

First of all let me start off by saying that I am sad I haven’t been keeping up with my blog.  School got busy going through finals and I am getting ready to start an internship, but for now I am back!

As stated in previous posts, we have two puppies, Buddy being the oldest.  A couple days ago, we decided to take the boys to the dog park, and after playing at the dog park for two hours we remembered that it was doggy night out at Ritters ice cream, so of course we had to go .  Once we got done with the ice cream and went home and the boys immediately passed out.  Aron and I still hadn’t had dinner yet so we had to leave the boys to go out.  Well when we leave the house/go to bed Tressel (the younger dog) stays out and doesn’t mess with anything.  Up to this point Buddy (the older dog) had always been in his crate, not to be trusted.  Well for some reason this night we decided that they were both exhausted and we should leave Buddy out too.  We put up a baby gate so that they would only be in the bedroom just in case, we tried to put everything that he might get to away, and we left.

Well we went to dinner and ran a couple errands…not taking more than two hours.  We came back home looked in the bedroom…and it looked as if a lawn mower had gone through the room TWICE.  Everything from DVD cases to magazines to the bed cusion was torn up.  EVERYTHING that was in his reach and even out of his reach he just had to taste.

At this point we weren’t sure what to do, you cant yell at him or punish him, we had brought it on ourselves.  The best we could do was clean it up, be thankful that we didn’t leave him to rome to house, and vow to never leave him out again!! I would have LOVED to have a video of this incident, what made him tear up the room and how long was he good before it happend…guess we will never know

Any other horror stories out there…or how about horror stories that are now able to be left out??

Two Peas in a Pod

Buddy is not our only baby, as I have mentioned before we have a 7 month old cocker spaniel/shepherd mix named Tressel (yes he was named after the OSU football head coach) and a very stubborn cat named Missy.  I was curious how other people have handled bringing other breeds and cats into a Pit Bull home.

The reason I ask is because when we first got Tressel he was the size of my tennis shoe so people warned us and actually glared at us when we socialized them at the dog park for the first time.  Buddy was already in the dog park when I found Tressel so Aron told me to bring him out to see how they would get a long…well right off the bat Tressel was attacking Buddy and Buddy just looked at us like what the heck is this little shit!  Needless to say we decided that Tressel could handle Buddy and Buddy could handle Tressel.  The very first day we brought Tressel home we learned that we did EVERYTHING wrong.  Tressel was a male…wrong, Tressel wasn’t fixed (yet)…wrong, Tressel and Buddy wouldn’t eat out of different food bowls…wrong, Tressel and Buddy liked playing tug-a-war…wrong.  Like I said we did EVERYTHING wrong, yet if we try and separate these two today, well there is no trying it’s just not happening!  I understand that there are certain things to do and to take into consideration, but there are no set rules, it’s how the dogs feel about each other that matters.

Big Head…Even Bigger Heart

I was reading an article recently in a Pit Bull magazine and it was talking about how owners should get involved in their community in order to raise Pit Bull awareness.  Aron and I were talking about getting Buddy trained as a therapy dog.  Of course he would have to go through several training classes and get certified but we think he can do it (Buddy of course not Aron ).  He just turned 1 but is very smart.  We were wondering if anyone has thought about this or has done this.  I know that there are Pit Bulls out there who are therapy dogs, they usually do very well when temperament tested.

HE JUMPED!

Apparently I forgot to add a tiny quirk in my last post and Buddy decided that he would remind me of it while driving down the road.  Ever since we adopted Buddy he has been afraid of the car…he breathes heavy and curls into a little ball.  Now I know what you are thinking…if he is that afraid of the car why torte him with it, well to answer your question the only place we take him to that requires driving is the doggy park.  So while he thinks we are torturing him, we get to the dog park and he is the happiest puppy ever.

Now I would not post about one little quirk that I forgot about, but I had to let all of you fellow Pit Bull owners know about the heart attack that Buddy gave me….

We had just left our house (we being Buddy, Tressel, my friend Brittni and I) I decided to put the all of the windows down because it was so nice outside, Buddy was curled up in the back seat and Tressel was in Brittni’s lap.  I was rolling up to a stop sign when I just so happened to look into my side mirror just in time to see Buddy jump out of the car and do a tuck and roll in the street and then sit on the sidewalk looking at me as to say “teaches you to make me ride in that death trap!”  I jerked my car into park ran over to get him, I checked him all over to make sure he was ok, I didn’t even find a scratch, but I did get one wet sloppy kiss …all the while my friend is laughing and wishing she had her camera.

Moral of the story…don’t underestimate your Pit Bull

The little things…

I have decided that after talking about getting Buddy and how people started reacting to him that this would be a good time to talk about Buddy himself and all of his little quirks.  The most noticeable and one that has been around since day one is that my vicious man eating Pit Bull…LOVES to spoon.

When it is time for bed Buddy hops right up and lays down ready to be cuddled with.  This habit most likely came from Buddy thinking he is a lap dog, yup that’s right, he thinks that he is the same size as his brother (a cocker spaniel/shepard mix Tressel who is about 15 pounds).  No matter who is sitting on the couch Buddy always makes sure they know that he has no problem squishing them in order to get comfortable.

Now that we have talked about Buddy’s cute quirks I have to and I am sorry for all of you who have weak stomachs, but the dog has gas…and when I say gas i mean BAD gas!!  Which after owning a Pit Bull I have found out that it is a Pit Bull thing because of his brachycephalic genes …great.  This could also be because Buddy is half goat and tried to eat EVERYTHING including his toys.  He has a habit of giving you a kiss and letting out a toot at the same time…oh Buddy what am I going to do with you

Any other quirks that might show up as he gets older….

Are you sure you want to get a Pit Bull…

When we first adopted Buddy he was tiny and everyone wanted him…until they found out what he was.  People would come up to us during a walk just to pet him and once they found out he was a Pit Bull it was always the same questions…you know he’s going to be huge right? What made you want to get a pit bull? Or they wouldn’t even ask a question at all they would just nod their head and walk away like at any moment this tiny puppy was going to snap.  I feel bad for Buddy now that he is about 55 pounds…he craves attention and LOVES people but when we go on walks now, people will actually walk into the street just to get around him and all he wants is to say hi.

The positive is that we do take him to the dog park and he is one of the better behaving dogs.  It’s interesting to see the other owners who are shocked that this Pit Bull is acting better than their poodle (no offense to poodles my parents have one and I love her to death).

Any other stories out there??

Let’s hear your Pit Bull Stories!!!

My boyfriend and I have been happy Pit Bull owners for about a year now.  His name is Buddy and we rescued him from the St. Louis Humane Society.  We walked into the place looking for a puppy to take home…who knew we would end up with a Pit Bull…the sweetest most loving dog I have ever known.  When i saw Buddy I was in love.  As soon as we walked into the room he started barking at us, he was the loudest one in the room, so I walked over to him and started talking to him (I’m crazy I know).  I would walk away to look at the other dogs and well the little stinker wouldnt leave me alone, so i convinced my boyfriend that we should take him into the play room, and this is when we both knew he was ours.  I guess you can say he adopted us in that shelter and we have never looked back.