Dog food

Okay so it's not about dog food per se, but if I owned a dog, I would try my hardest to feed them human-grade food, like Nutro or Candidae. Anyhow, I added a third blog link for dog blogs. Most of you know I'm crazy about the pooches. Can't have one, living here in this apartment, and everytime I see my landlord with his dog, I can't help but pet the dog, who is a Shepard-Husky mix and the most behaved dog I have ever seen in my life.

Growing up, my first pet was a Cockapoo named Brandy. My mom was pregnant with my little sister when we got her, and when my mom had my sister, Brandy was very good around her, and very protective of our family. It was quite funny to see a little Cockapoo growling if someone came to the door! Shortly after my sister was born, Brandy died tragically. I will spare you the details of how, but the vet had to put her down. She was the only dog my mother (who is a cat person) ever loved. After that, my mother went out and bought THREE puppies (what she was thinking I don't know), two of whom were a St Bernard mix (as we found out later as they grew!).

When my husband and I first started living together, we had a dog named D.O.G., who was a German Shepard mixed dog. She was such a sweetheart and would cuddle with you, and was the only dog I have ever known to give hugs. When I became pregnant with my daughter, she would bury her head in my belly and I knew she could hear the heartbeat. Whenever I got home from work, D.O.G. would be so thrilled to see me, and give me this look like she did something bad, so I would play around with her, and say, "What did you do?? I know you did something- what did you do, D.O.G.?" and she would just put that cute little head of hers down and look up at you with those puppy eyes. Such a sweetie. Sadly, she ran away from my mother-in-law (who she lived with after we moved back up to my hometown when I was in the second trimester of my pregnancy) in August of 2005 and they never did find her.

More recently, we haven't had any dogs, but whenever I go to my sister-in-law and brother-in-law's house, I usually get their dogs a-howlin', playing with them. Unfortunately, two weekends ago, my sister-in-law lost her dog, Papa. Papa somehow got loose and well, being close to a highway and busy road, you do the math. They still have Daisy, who is a pit bull/Rottweiler mix and does the whole head tilting thing if I say, "Daisy! Tilt your head!" It's the cutest thing.

Lastly I want to say I really think that pit bulls get such a bad rap and it irritates me to no end. In the group of "aggressive dogs" you also often hear of Rottweilers, Bulldogs, even German Shepards, Labradors, Mastiffs, etc. It bugs me because people automatically hear "pit bull" and think, BAD DOG. Well, bad dog if the owner is a bad owner. But not all pit bulls are the same, and I refuse to believe that. Daisy and Papa are/were pit bulls and never gave us any reason to think that they would be aggressive towards humans. Of course, they were brought up in a better home than some of the other pit bulls you hear about. I won't go on and preach about it, but before judging a pit bull because of their breed, please try understanding why they get such a bad rap, and why that misconception leads to breed bans.

Punish the deed, not the breed!