What My Dog Taught Me About Pitbulls

 Meet Nola. 4 years old and 50 pounds of excitement, affection, hunger, silliness and poop. She's a lab/pitbull mix I adopted at 3 months, and I have to admit that at the time I had no idea what I was getting into.

I, like many people, thought I knew and understood that horrid reputation that pitbulls have.  They're mean, vicious, and supposedly will attack and rip you to pieces without the slightest reason, right?

I beg to differ... and anyone who's met Nola will agree. Now I realize that she's only part pitbull, but according to reputation it doesn't matter. When people see her walking, they cross the road to be on the other side - and she only kind of looks like a pitbull.

Sure, she has a lot of lab-like qualities... like chewing. Naturally those qualities are usually supplemented with pitbull qualities...like strength. Example: at 3 months old she somehow ripped a door frame off the wall and chewed it to pieces.

The thing is, she was raised really well. She was spoiled, was always taugh new things, was always (correctly) disciplined when she did wrong... basically, it's the nature vs. nurture argument.

 I would be rich if I got paid every time someone said to me, "I was petrified of her, until I met her". Something about being licked to death makes people realize their life isn't threatened. 

I even did a speech for a class in college where I persuaded the class that pitbulls don't always live up to their bad rep. It was really entertaining when I let her out from where she was hiding and introduced her to them. She was even the sole reason that one of these classmates went to a shelter and saved a pitbull, when at the beginning he told me I was crazy.

 Her only fault is that she kind of looks like a pitbull. Pitbulls that are raised to be vicious killers will be... not all people are idiotic shithead murderers, so why make a sweeping generalization about a dog breed? The answer: it's easier to blame the dog than the owner.

-Scrizzle