Shasta's Special Message...

I asked Mommy if I could write in her blog today. I want people to see how I feel about all this and people may say doggies are dumb, but we aren't. We have big hearts and all we ask back is to be loved and properly cared for.

Mommy has a web site dedicated to promoting a positive image of the Pit bull breeds, because home here in Ontario is the first of it's kind in North America with the BSL (breed Specific Legislation) banning our kind from Ontario. Only with strict regulations are we allowed to be Grandfathered, or restricted, but we are allowed to live with our mommies and daddies as long as they abide by the laws and bylaws.

Well, it's very sad. Mommy get's emails asking for information, but also sometimes on how to save some of the innocent doggies that have fallen victim to the slightest mistake of this terrible ban..

I have a very good pal on Dogster and her name is Zoey. I love her very much. She lives in Ontario, Canada too. She had her mother and brother that doesn't live with her, but lived with a different mommy and daddy.

One day they had company over and they have neices and nephews and when they were coming in and out of the house, someone must have accidently forgotten to close the door. That's when they noticed that both the doggies were not in the house.

Both of these dogs had never bit or even growled before, but they went out the open door and decided to go for a walk, only they never came back. Animal Control found them and contacted the owners since they were legally registered. But they didn't give them back to the owners. Instead they put a destroy order on them and they ended up going to Rainbow Bridge all because they went outside by themselves. Yes, it is against the law, but the doggies didn't know that. If they had been any other breed, they would have been returned. The owners were always careful in the past, but this was an unfortunate mistake that any doggie could do, only because they are the Pit bull breeds, they had to go to Rainbow Bridge.

Mommy tried very hard to find a right solution to help these dogs, but their aren't any. If you are a Pit bull breed living in Ontario, there is no room for any kind of mistake, even if you have never harmed anyone all your life. Two of my kind had to die due to a stupid law. Two wonderful, innocent dogs that loved people, children and even other amimals and not a mean bone in their body were put on the destroy order. When Mommy received the sad news, she cried as she read the email. I licked her tears, but she was still so sad. They weren't the first ones to die needlessly and there will be more. That's the sad truth of this horrible ban.

For those owners of dogs that don't live in a banned area or aren't on the ban list, please don't take your freedom and your good times forgranted. It not easy being a restricted dog. You don't get to socialize anymore and everyone knows how important that is for all breeds. Our mommies and daddies always have to be on guard at all times as one false move and away we go, even if our mommies and daddies are responsible and we would never think to harm anyone or anything.

Two more doggies passed to Rainbow Bridge and their only crime was their breed.T heir family are distraught as you can imagine and the same for other people that own breeds the same as ours. In other parts of the world, there are even more breeds of doggies on the banned list. Some you would never believe would be banned and who knows what breeds they will pick on next. Maybe yours?

Yes, mommy and others are fighting to change this law and yes there are too many dogs bites, but it's not us that are doing it. Many times the media says it's us or they say, 'could be a Pit bull type.' Could be and is are not the same. Many times in the media it says a Pit bull breed bit someone, but they don't put up the picture of the dog, but another instead. So was it really a Pit bull breed that did it? How do we know? We only know what the media has written.

Mommy and me feel terrible what happened and mommy feels worse because there was nothing she could do to help. We cry for the innocent dogs that lives are snuffed out far before they should be. Not sick or old, but because of their breed. It's a very sorrowful time and they are martyr's lost in this battle.

I wonder when finally we win this battle, will I even remember how to be a 'regular doggie' once again? I just don't know! I really just don't know.

Mommy is making up a Time Capsule of a sort, only it won't be locked up for 50 years. She has newspaper clippings, her journal, pictures of me and my friends both in muzzles and without, calender, buttons and will include her wrist bans and some t-shirts, all the documents required to have me legally registered so I'm grandfathered.

Once we win, she will burn one of my muzzles as a symbolic gesture of the win, but she is going to enclose the other one in the box. She wants this to be remembered generations down so history doesn't repeat itself. She says that hopefully one of her great, great, great grandchildren will use the box in a school project to show how bad and wrong breed banning can be and the devistation it causes.

So to those special innocent doggies that have lost their lives in this battle, we will never forget you. We will keep your memory alive forever. You may not be with us, but you will always be within us.

*puppy love* Shasta