Here’s a fantastic article and amazing photos from Time Out Chicago about the Pit Bull Training Team, an organization dedicated to changing dogfighters into EX-dogfighters, and their dogs into well-trained canine citizens.
http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/features/83529/jeff-jenkins-and-the-pit-bull-training-team
On Saturdays in Austin on the West Side and Wednesdays in Englewood on the South Side—neighborhoods where street-level dogfighting is rampant—Jenkins and his Pit Bull Training Team (PBTT) offer free obedience classes to pit-bull owners, mostly young black men and boys. Some used to fight their dogs in basement and backyard rings. Others are at risk of becoming engaged in the underground blood sport. Several PBTT members also serve as Anti-Dogfighting Advocates (ADAs), whose job it is to recruit new students, break up dog fights in their communities and visit area elementary schools to educate about animal cruelty. In three years, more than 100 Chicagoans and their dogs have completed Jenkins’s ten-week obedience class.
Essentially, Jenkins has incubated a new approach to combating dogfighting that involves reaching out to afflicted communities and showing them the joys of responsible pet ownership. He has spread the End Dogfighting program to Atlanta and Milwaukee, and is planning expansion to Philadelphia and Los Angeles, as well as Chicago’s Humboldt Park and Little Village neighborhoods.
How come there are no females on your training team?
By: Joyce on November 12, 2010
at 12:37 am