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Chit Chat
wandajune6
member
We got a dog!
in Chit Chat
FI has been begging for a dog practically since we met. We only planned to peek at the shelter tonight but came home with Maury, a year and a half old pit bull/staff mastiff mix. I'm not a big dog fan but he's the sweetest pooch I've met. He's quiet, laid back, and, best yet, trained!
Meet the newest member of the family:
Meet the newest member of the family:
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Re: We got a dog!
As a side note, we've had a surprising number of negative responses from family and friends about getting a pit. He's just so sweet!
I hate the bad rep pits get. Growing up one of my friends had four huge pit bulls (they might have been normal sized, they seemed huge to me), they were the sweetest kindest dogs. You couldn't lay on the floor without getting slobbered on by them, they'd sit up on the couch and cuddle up with you and put their big heads in your lap and it was so sweet!!!
We knew that we wanted to adopt a dog from a local shelter. We knew we didn't want a puppy and we liked the idea of taking a dog who had no other options.
We went in looking for an older girl, likely a lab mix of some sort. We ended up with Maury. The volunteers asked us lots of questions and everyone kept mentioning him. We have a huge backyard and FI works from home most days so we think we can give him a good home. We have FSS's 15 year old son with us but we hope to have a baby someday. In the meantime, we think we can get Maury used to kids with the various nieces, nephews, and friends that come through our home.
While we were told that he's housebroken, good with kids and other dogs, and trained, we're planning on taking him for training. We'll wait a few days to see if it's truly necessary but we'd rather teach good behaviors from the start if possible.
I'm already in love!
Oh- and if anyone has any dog tricks, recommendations, etc. to share, I'd love to hear them!
Pitties are wonderful.
I volunteer at the only shelter in my city that allows them to be adopted to the public. I have met so many amazing pit bulls that way. So many are sweethearts and cuddle bugs.
I would recommend watching Zak George on youtube. He has many videos about dog training on a variety of subjects, all for free online. He does a relatively good job of explaining things and has a very communicative style. He advocates no-force and really communicating with your dog, getting it to think for itself and make good choices. He's a bit radical sometimes and can come off as a nut, but his message is a good one.
"They say there's no such place... as Paradise. Even if you search to the ends of the Earth, there's nothing there. No matter how far you walk, it's always the same road. It just goes on and on. But, in spite of that... Why am I so driven to find it? A voice calls to me... It says, 'Search for Paradise.' " - Kiba, Wolf's Rain
That actually happened with us too before the family had met him. Pitts and pitt mixes get a lot of hate like that. Dachshunds are actually more likely to bite. Once the family met him nobody said anything about the breed he was since he's so sweet and awesome. He's also the only dog in the family who fetches. For some reason that is amazing to both my parents and my ILs.