Trip to Petsmart

I know this has happened to everyone that ownes a Pit, but it really, really bothers me. I took Zoe into Petsmart today for some things we needed and, of course, things we didn't. People act like my dog is going to eat theirs or them. They would see us and go down another isle or back as far away from her as they could to get by us and it really pisses me off. I love Zoe so much that it is really offensive to me. ONE person (that worked their) wanted to come up and pet her. I had three people ask if she was a pit and I said she is a pit/boxer mix and they get this look on their face like OH NO! This isn't the first time it has happened and its not going to be the last, but I just had to vent.

On a brighter note, Im going to enroll Zoe in the Pets Mart training program. Its eight weeks/one hr week for $89.00. I thought we'd give it a try. We start on Wednesday night.

 

It is very frustrating when people act that way. But you know your dog is the best and that the stigma behind the breed is a load of BS so the best way to handle it is to ignore it. Insulting questions or comments are best handled with a friendly educated answer. Kill em with kindness!
Most people who make ignorant rude comments are just trying to ruffle your feathers....Dont give in stay calm and cool and turn it around on them quote interesting facts or ask them questions about the breed that you know they won't be able to answer. Good luck with the obedience classes Im sure it will be Great! Fun!

 

LOL the ol' "parting of the seas" at petsmart. I get it all the time. It probably doesnt help I'm covered in tattoo's & piercings. I've just grown used to it & ignore the stares. What can you do about it ya know.

 

Ya know... I've been racking my brain trying to figure out why people DON'T run when they see me and my pits coming and to tell you the truth...I've come to realize that they probably do... I just don't notice it...because when we're out with the dogs we're both covered in tattoos (my BF more and he's bald) and so...when we're at Wal-Mart we get the whole "parting seas" thing and it makes sense that I don't notice it... I guess you'll get used to it in time and it's their decision to STAY ignorant about your dog...

I've said this before but I WISH people would take more precautions when me and my BIG dogs come through... THAT get's annoying.

 

My daughter works at PetSmart. I ALWAYS make it a point to bring as many of my pitbulls in for VISITS!!
I bring in my own dogs and my foster dogs!
I ALWAYS AM VERY PROUD OF MY DOGS AND WHEN PEOPLE GIVE ME A DIRTY LOOK I MAKE SURE I GIVE IT RIGHT BACK TO THEM!!! I LOOK DOWN AT THOSE PEOPLE!!!
I am lucky because my daughter and her friends are very receptive to my dogs! So are MOST of the managers in the store. There are a few that are not pit friendly but I ALWAYS make sure I PROUDLY WALK BY THEM!!!!!!!!!
Sue

 

You know I don't have pitts. I've got heelers. And Smokey is that dark buff type, and he can look feirce, but that dog wouldn't hurt a flea if it bit him!!! I've had more people tell me, "you aught to be ashamed, bringing in a dog like that!" I'm baffled!!!!

I've seen people at pets mart and PETCo do the same. They see a dog, that doesn't even remotly look like a pitt, but may have a bulkyness, or stature to them, and they freek out!!!

There was this girl, she was petting this dog, Great looking Pitt. and she asked the dogs name, and the dog was sitting and shaking hands with her, and the guy said her name is Lady. We rescued her from a pitt bull rescue. That little girl freeked out. She started telling him she's gonna sue him, that dog could have bitten her or killed her. The guy handled it better than anyone I've ever seen.

He told her, "have you seen the little Rascals?" the girls said yeah, and.... "that was a pitt bull". The girl just laughed. Then he was telling her stories about them, and why they shouldn't be scared, yahda yahda yahda....before you knew it, there were 5 -6 people standing around. and everyone aplauded him!!!!!

Goes to show. Fight ignorance with intellegance and win every time!

 

Unfortunately we responsible pit owners have to deal with the ignorant public. I took Freedom into petsmart ever since I got him shipped to me at 8 weeks old. He grew up in there so everyone loved him at petsmart, occasionaly we will get nasty looks from random people, but majority of the people flock to us. We normally go in about every other saturday and all the employees wait for him to visit. Altho we have been kicked out of some places, which really made me upset. We got kicked out of home depot and L.A Reynolds (garden shop) Freedom had been going into home depot ever since he was a pup. At L.A Reynolds some lady with a little yappy dog lied to the manager and told him my dog was attacking people, which was a total lie. Really angers me at how cruel people can be.

 

That does suck. That would make me so mad, people are so ignorant sometimes. OMG a Pit Bull I still never understand how that causes fear. Seriously what is it about this breed? I go to petsmart once and a blue moon and I always take a dog, they love meeting the new people. Luckily I've never had that happen. I've only had people glad to see them and wanting to give them attention and some people who think they should let their little toy dogs play and boss big dogs around. But I have had some of those comments from people, not too often though, but when it happens!!! :x

 

I used to have the same thing happen when I owned my first pit. He wouldn't hurt anyone or anything except a cat. For some reason he was like a different dog when he saw a cat. Anyhow. I used to take him out to the local lake. It had a "swiming hole". Bogie LOVED the water and loved to play fetch. I would throw the ball out in the water and he would go after it ALL day. When people saw him the jumped out of the water like he was Jaws or something. Sad how these dogs have such a bad rep. I think the bad owners should be put down not the dogs.

 

I generally have a good experience when we go to the Pet-Mega stores, people with children are the tough cookies to break but I do the same with my son and other dogs in public, only I look at a Min Pin with the same reservations that I do a rott, both could tear his face in a split second so I dont begrudge people with children for their reservations.

The people who usually react the best are the staff. I always run into at least two employees who have "PitBulls", I have amstaffs but dont always do the speech. Somtimes when people ask me what kind of dogs I have and other "pitbull people" are around when I say amstaff terrier they give me a wink as if im candy coating the word PITBULL. What is funny is if I were to go and buy a good APBT it would look completely different than my Amstaffs and people would call my Amstaffs Pitbulls and ask me what kind of dog the pitbull was.

As owners of this breed it funny how we all become walking breed encyclopedias in public, sometimes its almost like walking around with a sibling who has tourets syndrome and you feel like you have to excuse or justify them to everyone else around.

 

VERY true... and my Boerboels are mistaken for pits more often than my pits are correctly identified... SERIOUSLY Riot's been called a pit more times than I can recall... EACH time I point out that he't at least twice the size of a pit and nothing like eachother... It's crazy... it's either gasping and running or not giving us enough space... One woman with children who had a pit...came and Ogled over Honijade...my shyist and incorrect dog... She had three kids with her one was eye to eye to Honijade for the most part... He wrapped his arms around her neck as though they were best friends... They weren't and that's the closest Honijade had ever been to kids... I had a small heart attack but was releived to notice that the boy must've eaten a sucker before coming into the place because HJ was more interrested in WHAT he had all over his face than she was in the fact he was invading her space SERIOUSLY...

Not sure which I'd rather...?

 

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.That type of thing happens alot to me. I will be walkin one of the dogs and people will actually make it a point to cross the street, so as not to come near me!! I think the most ridiculous example tho' Is a few weeks ago I was shopping and had Mathyus in the car and this lady and her kids were looking in the window at him, when I came to the car she asked if they could see him of course I said sure. He was lovin the belly rubs!! And the kids were loving it too, then the lady asked me what kind of dog he was, as soon as pitbull came out of my mouth she grabbed the kids and backed away, she said "Oh I'm sorry I didn't know" I was shocked Matty was only ten weeks old!!! What exactly did she think was gonna happen, not to mention she had already seen how lovable he was!! People can be soooo ignorant! :x

 

We had Monty out at the park...just walking...there was a craft show we were on our way to take in... WELL this older lady let out a HUGE gasp and made it a point to give us a birth of about 20 feet in a HUGE arching circle out of our way... Monty is our MOST loveable dog we own...he's embarassing most of the time... TRULY embarassing...LOL

They think the breed is supposed to be huge and drooling and crazy... I never realized how big people THINK they are till we got Riot and have people think he's a pit... he's 115lbs and HUGE... a Pit??? that fellow on my Avatar there??? I hope none of you thought he was...LOL... Whopper maybe??? But APBT for real??? NO WAY....the first person who mistook him I nearly laughed at...had to contain how idiotic I thought the idea was...but...did my best to be calm and cool and set them straight.

 

I love how people have a picture of a pit bull in their head as some huling beast. Whenever people who don't know the breed are loving on Annie and I tell them her breed, they're shocked! I always get something like, but she's so cute and isn't she kinda small? Annie is by no means small for an APBT..she's about 50 lbs now.

 

It's weird, when Freedom was a little tiny puppy peole were more afraid of him then, then they are now. When he was a pup I had more ignorant people approach me, but now that he is full grown (and almost 4) I can't tell you the last time I saw a nasty glare, a rude remark, or people steering clear. Freedom is a 80 lb., pure muscle, intimidating looking dog, but people just come right up to him and start petting him. You would think it wouuld be the opposite, lol. When he was 10 weeks old we were leaving PETsMART, Freedom was walking out and this lab and the owner walked by. The lab was sniffing Freedom and before I knew it the lab was on top of Freedom trying attack him. The lady quickly pulled her lab off and when she saw Freedom she said "Oh, it's a pit bull" and just walked off. No, "oh, i'm so sorry my dog almost crushed your puppy", no nothin! Like it was ok since Freedom was a "pit bull" it's no big deal that her lab almost killed him. Now, people always come up to us wanting to know about Freedom and when they are petting him and seeing how big of a goof ball he is they just fall in love. When they ask what he is I always get "this is a pit bull????!!! I never knew they were so nice!"

 

You know what I do when people give me an attitude about my "Breed" of dog?
I very politely say to them when they say "IS that a PITBULL"?
Why, yes, she is. She came from Forever Paws shelter. Her name is Ginger or whatever dog I happen to have with me, (usually Ginger because she is the best behaved to take shopping with me) I go on to embellish upon the fact that she also has her CGC (Canine Good Citizenship Certificate) and goes into nursing homes to do pet therapy. I then finish with Ginger has been in fashion shows to help homeless dogs and she also has gone thru two years of obedience training and is very smart. I then as them Who is your dog trainer?
It shuts them RIGHT UP EACH AND EVERY TIME!!
This is why is am so gun ho about my dogs getting their CGC and get obedience trained.
Just tell them all the MARVELOUS TRICKS AND PERSONALITY TRAITS YOUR DOG HAS AND MAKE SURE YOU BRAGG LIKE A NEW MOM AND GLOAT UPON YOUR DOG AS YOU DO SO!!!
They won't ask again "Is that a Pitbull"??

 

I don't know I guess I'm lucky, because everytime I go to Petsmart people are always very friendly with me and my dog. I don't think I've ever had anyone avoid me, and the employees and trainers love my dog Rolo.