Ellie the PitBull

While we were in Spain last month, our nine-year-old Australian shepherd, Molly, died of a mysterious seizure/paralysis that came on suddenly one morning and ended with her being put to sleep that night. She was the perfect dog, sweet, personable, completely trustworthy and nice to everyone. I'm more of a cat person, but even I cried and cried when she was gone. It was particularly tragic because we couldn't be there with her, and we felt horrible that she went through all of that without her family at her side.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that you should wait before starting a relationship with a new pet, but the house seemed empty without Molly, and Rachel, who was leaving for Brazil, wanted to have a say in the selection process. We all agreed that we wanted to get a dog from the pound, and we were pretty open to any breed, as long as it was bigger than a breadbox.

During my orphanage visit in Russia, my family sent me emails about the pitbull mix they were visiting at the pound. I kept writing back, "I'm not excited about a pitbull...Pitbulls are kind of scary...I don't know about that pitbull..." Nevertheless, when they picked me up at the airport, there she was, Ellie, our new 6-month-old pitbull mix puppy.

The response from friends, relatives, dog trainers, and random people has been wildly divergent, from delight and adoration to uncomfortable silence to sheer horror. My brother introduced her to his golden retriever and 6 of his 8 children, and they played for 9 hours straight. My mother, reserved at first, ended up happily babysitting Ellie for several hours while we went to a reception. A woman at PetSmart quietly moved her daughter to her other side, away from Ellie. And my sister-in-law flatly informed me on the telephone that she is never coming to our house again.

I now find myself in the awkward position of defending pitbulls. That is, defending my pitbull (mix). I feel a huge responsibility to raise her properly, so I spend time with her each day, practicing our lessons from obedience school, anxiously watching for negative behaviors, taking her with me on errands so she is properly socialized. So far, she is sweet, affectionate, almost desperate to please us, quick to learn and very obedient--all traits typical of pitbulls, I'm told. She and our cats are still wary of each other, but she's friendly and curious when she meets a new dog.

I would never leave any dog alone with a small child, and Ellie will never go out in public without a leash. I will probably never trust her as completely as I trusted Molly. But I am starting to wonder if maybe pitbulls don't deserve all the bad press they get. Maybe the vicious ones really are that way because they are mistreated or trained to behave that way. Maybe the vast majority truly are loving, steady, loyal companions. I hope so. Meanwhile, it's another context in which to examine preconceived notions and prejudices, and how scary it is to take a risk and reach out to someone or something new we've only heard about.