Marnie, speak! Good girl.

I live with five, FIVE cats and you'd think they'd lend a paw to help out with the guarding around here. But no. They are fairly useless. I spend the entire day running from the front window to the side window, guarding against squirrels, birds, the black and white tom who lives next door, NOT to mention the mailman. Yesterday there was a skunk. I'm exhausted.

And those lazy feline lumps just snore on pillows all day, then get up to go eat tuna when the sun goes down.

It's a dog's life.

i'm still upset about this! the owners are incredibly irresponsible, regardless of the breed of the dog. GRRRRRR.

Some of the nicest dogs I've known are pitbulls. Any intact male of any breed is a potential problem so it was good you called Animal Control. Not to mention, I hate it when they get hit by cars. That just destroys me. So it is for their safety as much as anyone else's.

I wish I had a picture from this weekend when my three greyhounds were sound asleep by the sliding glass door and both a squirrel and a strange cat stopped by to look in the door at them (not two feet away from each other). They just slept through the whole thing. Not earning their keep at all!

Oh sigh. Good to know the girls were on security detail at the time, though!

Very glad to hear the pit didn't injure anyone! I totally agree with m.k. about calling animal control. It's very sad though that many cities are banning pits due to irresponsible humans. As a Rotweiller and Pit-mix owner, I feel those with "good citizen" training should not be punished for other's misdeeds.

I'm sorry you were in this situation. It looks like your guard dogs had everything under control. That last picture is priceless! :)

I dream about what sort of dog I will adopt next. I love the faces on Boston Terriers (they remind me of Nibbler, from Futurama!), I love the playful nature of Boxers (and how they often seem to look indignant), and I love the omgcuteness of little English Bulldogs. But in reality, I know that I'm NOT going to be buying a dog from anyone; I'll be rescuing a dog, just like I adopted my (not-so-)little Zero.

I was talking about this one night at a knitting group, and I joked that despite what I might wish for, I realized that what I'd probably end up with is a Pit mix, because that's what the shelters all have the most of. I guess only time can tell. It does suck that you had to call Animal Control, but I've no doubt that you HAD to. There are a lot of scary dogs out there, regardless of the breed.

Any dog that is loose in the neighborhood and goes after a person (especially a child) is a dog that animal control needs to get a phone call about.

You know that two of my sweeties are pit mixes. I know that a lot of the concern comes from the powerful bite that pits can have, but they aren't alone in the dog world. Akitas, for example, were traditionally hunters and guards, and are very strong and must be well trained to prevent them from being very aggressive, but they are also fluffy and cute, which works in their favor in terms of public opinion, I believe.

I too have a soft spot for pits. In Chicago area, especially in some of the more gang infested areas in the city itself, however, they are a real menace. A woman jogger was actually killed by pit bulls a few years ago (http://tinyurl.com/abfgr3. This was just one of several incidents in the past several years. More than one of the incidents involved family pets who had seemed docile & friendly until then. In one case, a 10 year old boy was severely maimed by a mother & son pit bull owned by his best friends family. He was at their house almost every day & one day they just attacked him without provocation. The Chicago Tribune did a series of articles about the incident & the boy's healing process (he is permanently scarred). They talked to experts who said that, unless you buy a pit bull from a well established breeder who can attest to the good nature of the parents & even grandparents, you cannot be sure a pit won't ever turn on you or a loved one or friend. The dogs that attacked the little boy were sweet, gentle family pets, well known for their sweet natures by the entire neighborhood until one day they seemed to just go crazy. If I remember correctly they also attacked the owner & cops had to shoot them - they actually were just attacking everything in sight - even fences & inanimate objects. It seems that at least one child per month is seriously injured by a pit bull in this area. It is such a shame the harm done by irresponsible breeders.

I'd worry about a stray pit bull, too. Isn't it a sad thing? I love your pictures of your girls, though, as always!

I have a softspot for pits, too. One of the smartest and sweetest dogs I've ever known was a pit rescue, who'd been severely abused as a pup. But now I'm really rather afraid of them; I was bitten in our driveway last year by my neighbor's pit mix. Not really the dog's fault, but a crappy owner who couldn't handle a high energy pup. But all the same, we live in a tough neighborhood with a LOT of people who breed pits with bad intentions. I've taken to driving to another neighborhood when I go for a run after more than one scary episode with a pit off-leash. Hopefully they found the owners or found him a nice home with a good, tall fence.

As the child of a zookeeper, I learned that animals are marvelous but one has to remember that teeth and claws are not decorative. I have had some wonderful and unusual experiences with animals but many of those situations could have been very dangerous if I had not been with people that knew the animals well.

I feel the same about pit bulls. I feel sad and angry about the abuse the breed has had, but I look at the jaws and muscles and automatically keep away. I act this way about many similar sized dogs, as they might be sweet and adorable but I wait until an owner indicates that to be true.

It's too bad that animal control had to be involved but I would have no more approached a possibly mean animal than tried to pet a tiger.

We know that feeling; not that we mind the birds, but we particularly dislike the Magpies as they disturb our Chooks.