No Such Things

All across this country, animal shelters are full to bursting. In the region in which I live, I’ve noticed that the majority of dogs in shelters are some variety of the notorious pit bull.

The dogs themselves do make warning lights go off in my head when I see them. I have been around a few pit bulls that seemed friendly enough, but their very appearance puts me in mind of monsters like the uruk-hai: creatures bred specifically for a malign purpose. Yes, yes, I know, I know. There are no such things as bad dogs…only bad owners. Every time I have expressed my unease with this breed of dog, I have received this same lecture, and I am aware that pit bull owners love their dogs. They wouldn’t own them if they didn’t love them.

I simply don’t understand why anyone would want to own them. It’s pretty easy to find news items about yet another pit bull who turned on its owner and mauled the person….or even killed the person. And those close to the dog will predictably say, “He was always a good dog. He never showed any aggression before this incident. We can’t imagine what made him decide to chew her into pieces…”

And that’s the problem. The demonstrated pattern of behavior that pit bulls possess shows that they are in fact quite likely to attack even a trusted and “beloved” owner. Much in the same way that chimpanzees are known to attack human caretakers and mutilate them in ways beyond any horror movie’s descriptive abilities. And so many pit bulls are in homes where small children live. 

This tells me that the owners of these dogs probably suppress — with considerable force — the natural intelligence and intuition that tells human beings Bad! Do not touch! Stay away! They suppress it and pay the cost.

But why would any rational person tamp down the natural instinct to fear a powerful creature that is bred to attack and fight?

Observing the people whom I personally know who own pit bulls and sing their praises, I have come to conclude that this is an example of animalistic virtue signaling.  See how much I care? Not only do I provide a home to a dog in need of one, I intentionally select the dogs that are scary, the ones no one else wants. This says a lot about me, don’t you think?

And these people seem to attract each other. When one person starts talking about their “rescue pit,” others will find them the way chess nerds or gym rats or gun guys will sense and approach one another. If they see that they have an audience of sorts, they will begin to try to outdo each other in anecdotes about how stupid and narrowminded and, yes, bigoted the non-pit bull crowd are. An amazing trick, that. The pit bull people manage to elevate themselves into a high spiritual status by virtue of the dog they feed and house.

It’s fascinating to me to see how this mindset mirrors that of the sort of person who believes (and publicly declaims) that he is virtuous and noble because he lionizes — and perhaps allows his daughter to date? — folks of low character and repellent personal habits. Christ ate with whores and tax collectors, and look at who sits at my table. I used to see this sort of thing in churches all the time. The same man who wouldn’t give the time of day to a quiet, earnest Christian would crawl over a flaming, broken glass-covered row of pews to get to some “rebel against society” to shake its hand and to show how open-minded and tolerant he was.

Thus, “Yes, you adopted a hound/terrier mix that had been abused by its owner, but I adopted a pit. Not everyone will do what I did. Tremble before my virtue, my innate goodness. And don’t mind the bite marks on my arms.”

They’re right about one thing, of course. The problem is bad owners.

~ S.K. Orr