He Is Who He Is

We know most of the people in our area that have dogs and walk them regularly. I know there are people with dogs that don't walk them often so we probably haven't encountered them yet. Occasionally we meet someone new out walking their dog but it's typically the same group of us frequent walkers.

Barry is usually pretty interested in meeting each dog he sees. Sometimes he's too busy hunting squirrel to notice a dog walk by but I'd say he more often than not notices the dogs. Many of the people we see we already have met and they know how Barry is and are happy to let Barry sniff and their dog sniff, etc. They know what to expect. He is excited, happy, overly friendly/rude (whichever you want to call it - some older dogs find Barry rude and they don't like his in-your-face exuberance, and I frankly don't blame them), and mostly nosey or curious. It doesn't really matter what kind of dog or what size of dog, Barry doesn't judge. He treats them all equally.

He gets along with some dogs better than others but he is fine with all dogs in general (it's the cats that we have to watch). Sometimes we'll pass a dog that starts barking at him. Barry quickly runs past and whines his whistle whine. I find it funny when it's a tiny fur ball dog that barks at Barry and Barry gets upset and whines. He doesn't understand that the dog is the size of his paw, he just knows the dog has communicated to him that she doesn't want him to come near so he gets upset and hurries past whining. The look on any passerby's face is usually that of humored surprise when they see the paw-sized fur ball putting the 70 lb pit bull in his place. He doesn't get that he's got a stigma (thanks to humans and media) attached to him for life just because of his looks.

Look at that mean pit bull face. Very intimidating.

When Barry moseys down the street or on a hiking trail, or sits in the back seat of our car, or meets a new dog, or watches as someone crosses the street to get away from him, or gets patted on the head by a stranger, or goes crazy when he sees a squirrel or cat, or lays in between Husband and me in bed at night he has no idea about what some people think of him. He doesn't watch the news or read the paper. He doesn't know that he is not like other dogs (even though he is sort of just like other dogs). He doesn't understand that some people want to purposely harm him because of his breed. Thank goodness there are more and more supporters of his breed. I don't think in his lifetime we'll see the breed discrimination go away fully but I know at some point it will.

Barry doesn't have to worry about being a pit bull. He won't worry about it because he's a dog. He can't comprehend it. Instead, we'll take on that issue ourselves, Husband and I, and do our best to make sure Barry has the best life he could ever have.