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savingdogs
Queen Filksinger
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The Story of Lily and Violet
Lily and Violet were two pups, pit bull pups, that I fostered together and their stories with me are intertwined so I'll tell them together, although they each ended up with their own home. Did you know people starve pit bull puppies to make them want to fight? Well, this is the story of puppies that had that happen to them.
A rescue friend of mine who knew we had been helping pit bull puppies called me and asked if I could take in two that had been abused and snatched away from a pit bull fighting ring and I said yes. She went to pick them up, and took one look at them and rushed them to emergency. They were weak, dehydrated, horribly thin little fawn-and- white red-noses and the smaller one they thought would die. My rescue friend brought me the other pup, whom I named Violet. She was weak as well, but what a tough little soul she is, and after the vet gave her fluids she rallied and was much better whereas her sister spent a couple days at the vet before she could be brought home, but they were able to pull the pup through and I reunited them. They were only three weeks old and so horribly thin, I had to wake up and feed them every four hours for the first couple weeks and we bonded, they were cute as the dickens. We took before and after pictures the police tried to use to prosecute the dog fighting people, but they could never make the case with the laws in Oregon.
At the same time, I also had another litter of puppies, a pit/lab litter, and I hoped they could all be one big happy family. As soon as I felt like Violet and Lily (which is what we named the smaller pup) were strong enough, I put them with the older litter. The other litter was immediately 100 percent outsmarted and outpaced by the little full-blooded pitties, they were one of the ways that I learned that pit bulls are really quite a bit smarter than other dogs. The little girl Lily began to get into dog fights when the other pups would approach her food bowl. She HAD been starved and so I gave her a break and kept her apart from the other pups about the third time I had to break up a puppy-fight and had finally gotten bit on the hand myself. I luckily had a little kiddie pool set up for my children in the back yard, because when Lily decided to fight with another pup, she would clamp down hard and not let go (no, pit bulls jaws do NOT lock, but they can hold tight) so that I could not extricate the other puppy, and of course the attacked puppy would wail and cry so loud the neighbors were rushing over from the next yards, so I tossed both pups in the kiddie pool and SPLASH! Lily finally let go. But I started keeping her apart from the other pups at that point and worried about how to place her. However the vet told me that it was unfair to evaluate the temperament of a dog that had recently been starving until it had gotten over it, so I chose to give the dog a break, and kept socializing her with older dogs and her sister, whom she did not fight with.
Lily became a bit of a controversial dog in the group because of an incident in a store where I was holding adoption events. What happened was, I had brought Lily and Violet and the other puppies, but kept Lily in a crate. A dog trainer "supposedly" from PetSmart came over to me and asked why I had the one puppy crated. I explained and she offered to work with the pup. I said "No! not right now around these other puppies!" because I was conducting an adoption of a different dog and was too busy to watch over them. She tried to insist and I repeated that NO! That pup could not come out, was not appropriate to have around the other pups. However the trainer snuck behind my back and took Lily out of the crate. To "train" her, she took her right over to one of my other puppies and was FEEDING her treats. I did not turn until I heard the puppy SCREAMING in the store because Lily thought the pup was going to take her treats, and attacked her. The little puppy screamed so loud, half the store came rushing over. I had to bang Lily's head against the ground to get her to let go, got bit myself and had MY blood spurting out on the floor at Petsmart, and by this time they have grabbed my other pup and rushed her to the vet,which is just inside the petsmart, while I was escorting Lily in her crate out to my VAN where no meddling people could open her crate and let her out without my permission and got to doctor my hand. About this time I rush back in and find that they are trying to present me with a bill for my own foster puppy whom the vet has half shaved to find a little teeny tiny nick that Lily had made in the puppy's ear (the pup was a drama queen). The blood all over the dog had been MINE. The pup was scheduled to be adopted the next day so she had to go off to her new home with one ear naked, but she was fine. I was so upset at PetSmart, I really never got over my anger at that particular trainer, she got a big piece of my mind and helped straighten out the "vet bill" issue. They had whisked my puppy off without my permission or signature and I did not WANT her head shaved to find a tiny dog bite and would have figured out the blood was from MYSELF had they given me a minute alone with my pup. In any event, Lily was banned from PetSmart by them and she became controversial.
This event made me research how-to-break-up-dog fights and I no longer do it the same way, and I also learned how to recognize when dogs are GOING to fight, and plunged into researching dog behavior, how to deal with these tougher breeds, as Lily had been the first dog to ever bite me (actually it was the other pup each time that bit me, but Lily caused it).
Hubby and I almost left the group (we later did about a different issue) because the whole discussion came up about what makes a dog a companion? What breeds should be rescued? Should fighting dogs be helped? While I later learned that dogs directly from fighting rings were the hardest pit bulls to resocialize, we had bonded to the pups and did not accept that they should be euthanized when they loved people and their issue was other dogs around their food. We felt they should be correctly placed. We finally were so upset with the way Lily was being handled, we gave her back to the person who gave her to us, and removed her from the listing as a "companion" animal. She was actually fostered by my friend's friend and placed through a different rescue. She eventually got over her issue of fighting with other dogs, had a happy home and the last time I heard from them, she was doing awesome and was a happy member of their family (although I did not personally place her).
Violet, however, I fought about. She was only the sibling of the dog that caused the problem, but she did have the dog fighting tendencies so I was concerned about her placement but still felt she was a companion animal. After a few bumps in the road, we finally found the right home however, through a co-worker who was a big pit bull advocate, not the group's website; my co-worker knew a family looking for a new dog and they were extremely experienced with the breed. So Violet went to them, and was renamed Pio (which just by chance, means Lily in Hawaiian). I am lucky enough to still be in contact with Violet's owner, and received pictures about her just the other day, which I will add on here asap (I need Hubby's computer to convert a facebook picture to one I can put on the forum, but I have a puppy picture she had, of Violet at 3 weeks, which was one of my photos I had thought I had lost in my Great Computer Crash That Lost My Foster Pictures)
Violet needed training, she did have the tendency to want to get into dog fights, so she has to be kept contained carefully and trained and re-trained, but her people are lovers of the breed and know how to handle them and be ambassadors for pit bulls, even ones that someone tried to make into fighting dogs. One of their other dogs (also a pit bull) just lived to the ripe old age of 18 and I'm so grateful to God that my dear little Violet got to become their beloved Pio.
I have a photo of her more recently I'll add here:
Sorry to tease about the pictures, I'll try to convert them and add them and the one of Bindi Jo tonight.
But in any event, the moral of the story for me is that dogs that have been starved as puppies can go through a TEMPORARY phase of being dog aggressive that can later be tamed and they can go on from a fighting ring to become a beloved family pet, if they get into the right hands.
Message to Michael Vick from Pio: Bite me!
Lily and Violet were two pups, pit bull pups, that I fostered together and their stories with me are intertwined so I'll tell them together, although they each ended up with their own home. Did you know people starve pit bull puppies to make them want to fight? Well, this is the story of puppies that had that happen to them.
A rescue friend of mine who knew we had been helping pit bull puppies called me and asked if I could take in two that had been abused and snatched away from a pit bull fighting ring and I said yes. She went to pick them up, and took one look at them and rushed them to emergency. They were weak, dehydrated, horribly thin little fawn-and- white red-noses and the smaller one they thought would die. My rescue friend brought me the other pup, whom I named Violet. She was weak as well, but what a tough little soul she is, and after the vet gave her fluids she rallied and was much better whereas her sister spent a couple days at the vet before she could be brought home, but they were able to pull the pup through and I reunited them. They were only three weeks old and so horribly thin, I had to wake up and feed them every four hours for the first couple weeks and we bonded, they were cute as the dickens. We took before and after pictures the police tried to use to prosecute the dog fighting people, but they could never make the case with the laws in Oregon.
At the same time, I also had another litter of puppies, a pit/lab litter, and I hoped they could all be one big happy family. As soon as I felt like Violet and Lily (which is what we named the smaller pup) were strong enough, I put them with the older litter. The other litter was immediately 100 percent outsmarted and outpaced by the little full-blooded pitties, they were one of the ways that I learned that pit bulls are really quite a bit smarter than other dogs. The little girl Lily began to get into dog fights when the other pups would approach her food bowl. She HAD been starved and so I gave her a break and kept her apart from the other pups about the third time I had to break up a puppy-fight and had finally gotten bit on the hand myself. I luckily had a little kiddie pool set up for my children in the back yard, because when Lily decided to fight with another pup, she would clamp down hard and not let go (no, pit bulls jaws do NOT lock, but they can hold tight) so that I could not extricate the other puppy, and of course the attacked puppy would wail and cry so loud the neighbors were rushing over from the next yards, so I tossed both pups in the kiddie pool and SPLASH! Lily finally let go. But I started keeping her apart from the other pups at that point and worried about how to place her. However the vet told me that it was unfair to evaluate the temperament of a dog that had recently been starving until it had gotten over it, so I chose to give the dog a break, and kept socializing her with older dogs and her sister, whom she did not fight with.
Lily became a bit of a controversial dog in the group because of an incident in a store where I was holding adoption events. What happened was, I had brought Lily and Violet and the other puppies, but kept Lily in a crate. A dog trainer "supposedly" from PetSmart came over to me and asked why I had the one puppy crated. I explained and she offered to work with the pup. I said "No! not right now around these other puppies!" because I was conducting an adoption of a different dog and was too busy to watch over them. She tried to insist and I repeated that NO! That pup could not come out, was not appropriate to have around the other pups. However the trainer snuck behind my back and took Lily out of the crate. To "train" her, she took her right over to one of my other puppies and was FEEDING her treats. I did not turn until I heard the puppy SCREAMING in the store because Lily thought the pup was going to take her treats, and attacked her. The little puppy screamed so loud, half the store came rushing over. I had to bang Lily's head against the ground to get her to let go, got bit myself and had MY blood spurting out on the floor at Petsmart, and by this time they have grabbed my other pup and rushed her to the vet,which is just inside the petsmart, while I was escorting Lily in her crate out to my VAN where no meddling people could open her crate and let her out without my permission and got to doctor my hand. About this time I rush back in and find that they are trying to present me with a bill for my own foster puppy whom the vet has half shaved to find a little teeny tiny nick that Lily had made in the puppy's ear (the pup was a drama queen). The blood all over the dog had been MINE. The pup was scheduled to be adopted the next day so she had to go off to her new home with one ear naked, but she was fine. I was so upset at PetSmart, I really never got over my anger at that particular trainer, she got a big piece of my mind and helped straighten out the "vet bill" issue. They had whisked my puppy off without my permission or signature and I did not WANT her head shaved to find a tiny dog bite and would have figured out the blood was from MYSELF had they given me a minute alone with my pup. In any event, Lily was banned from PetSmart by them and she became controversial.
This event made me research how-to-break-up-dog fights and I no longer do it the same way, and I also learned how to recognize when dogs are GOING to fight, and plunged into researching dog behavior, how to deal with these tougher breeds, as Lily had been the first dog to ever bite me (actually it was the other pup each time that bit me, but Lily caused it).
Hubby and I almost left the group (we later did about a different issue) because the whole discussion came up about what makes a dog a companion? What breeds should be rescued? Should fighting dogs be helped? While I later learned that dogs directly from fighting rings were the hardest pit bulls to resocialize, we had bonded to the pups and did not accept that they should be euthanized when they loved people and their issue was other dogs around their food. We felt they should be correctly placed. We finally were so upset with the way Lily was being handled, we gave her back to the person who gave her to us, and removed her from the listing as a "companion" animal. She was actually fostered by my friend's friend and placed through a different rescue. She eventually got over her issue of fighting with other dogs, had a happy home and the last time I heard from them, she was doing awesome and was a happy member of their family (although I did not personally place her).
Violet, however, I fought about. She was only the sibling of the dog that caused the problem, but she did have the dog fighting tendencies so I was concerned about her placement but still felt she was a companion animal. After a few bumps in the road, we finally found the right home however, through a co-worker who was a big pit bull advocate, not the group's website; my co-worker knew a family looking for a new dog and they were extremely experienced with the breed. So Violet went to them, and was renamed Pio (which just by chance, means Lily in Hawaiian). I am lucky enough to still be in contact with Violet's owner, and received pictures about her just the other day, which I will add on here asap (I need Hubby's computer to convert a facebook picture to one I can put on the forum, but I have a puppy picture she had, of Violet at 3 weeks, which was one of my photos I had thought I had lost in my Great Computer Crash That Lost My Foster Pictures)
Violet needed training, she did have the tendency to want to get into dog fights, so she has to be kept contained carefully and trained and re-trained, but her people are lovers of the breed and know how to handle them and be ambassadors for pit bulls, even ones that someone tried to make into fighting dogs. One of their other dogs (also a pit bull) just lived to the ripe old age of 18 and I'm so grateful to God that my dear little Violet got to become their beloved Pio.
I have a photo of her more recently I'll add here:
Sorry to tease about the pictures, I'll try to convert them and add them and the one of Bindi Jo tonight.
But in any event, the moral of the story for me is that dogs that have been starved as puppies can go through a TEMPORARY phase of being dog aggressive that can later be tamed and they can go on from a fighting ring to become a beloved family pet, if they get into the right hands.
Message to Michael Vick from Pio: Bite me!
