there's a new kid on the block (and she's got the right stuff!)

For those of you who don't know, Brian and I recently adopted a 2 and a half month old female pit bull mix named Echo from the pound. Some of you are probably jumping for joy saying "Yay! A bully breed! I love pits!" and the rest of you are shaking your heads saying "What the fuck were they thinking? Why didn't they just get a golden?" because with pits it's all or nothing, you love them or you hate them and nothing on God's green earth will change your mind. And I guess that's your perogative. But this is my blog so I'm gonna tell you why people should not be afraid of pit bulls...because there are no bad dogs just bad owners. If you were a 50+ pound intellegent high energy dog who was stuffed in a kennel all day long and only pulled out in order to well, rip off another dog's face before it ripped off yours, you'd be an ass hole too! With responsible ownership pit bulls truely do make amazing pets and are even good with children. And get this for a statistic (and it's 100% true, I did a lot of research before posting this)...The American Canine Temperament Testing Association, which sponsors tests for temperament titles for dogs, reported that 95% of all American Pit Bull Terriers that take the good temperament test pass, compared with a 77% passing rate for all breeds on average. The pit's passing rate was the fourth highest of all the 122 breeds tested. If you would like more information on this wondeful yet controversial breed please go to http://www.badrap.org/. It is based out of the bay area but has tons of great resources for anyone no matter where you live. They have a blog on blogspot as well and so I've posted a link to their blog here on my blog. They also have some great stuff about all of the Michael Vick dogs. The clips and stories about the dogs rescued from his operation made me laugh then cry then laugh again. There is a clip on there from Rachael Ray (a fellow pit lover and owner) that was on her show and is really worth watching as well as all the clips they have posted about the whole process of getting the dogs from Vick's compound out to Cali, evaluating the dogs, and trying to find them forever homes. With that said we can get back to Echo, who sadly I can't post pics of yet (FYI that huge beast pictured above is NOT Echo, you'll find out who he is a little later) but I will have some ASAP (as well as pics of Ted because even though he's been with us for over a year many of you still have never seen him!) So far she is doing fabulous here with us. Her potty training is going way better than I could have imagined and she and Ted love each other (even if sometimes TedTed gets annoyed cuz she thinks his big bushy tail is the coolest chew toy ever!) She is what they call a chocolate tri and we arn't too sure what she is mixed with (maybe lab, maybe nothing at all, maybe squirrel since that's what she looks like right now...all are equally probable.) For those of you who don't know what a chocolate tri pit may look like thats where the pic comes in. That might be what Echo looks like when shes older (minus the balls and of course I left her ears natural.) I know Brian and I will have to face a lot of stereotypes now, things that you never have to deal with when you just have an aussie/border collie mix and I'm prepaired for people to be apprehensive and have faced the facts that no matter what happens I am no longer allowed to live in Denver:) But I know they are a lot of bully friendly people out there, especially here in Fort Collins, and I look forward to meeting other responsible pit owners in the area. So yeah, I guess thats all for now, seeing as I have to go play with my pup so that I can raise her right and prove all the nay-sayers wrong about pit bulls. I'll show them all when they meet Echo, whose gonna get so spoiled and be so sweet that she wouldn't even hurt Michael Vick if he decided to stop by...