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•About the author

•Felanie and Dozer

Felanie
"The Brains"

Felanie is very special to me. It is because of her that I discovered I loved dogs. Fel and I have a very strong bond forged by trust and understanding. She is an older dog now, and we like to tease her and call her "grandma" because she is so quiet and mellow, but I think in fact that's her personality (probably aggravated by mild hip dysplasia, which keeps her from running around very much).

That's not to say she doesn't play. When she's feeling good, she loves to run the agility course or play-fight with her Daddy. One of her favorite games is "Monster", where Byrd (my husband) gets under the covers on the bed and squirms around, and she stands on top of the bed and bites at him. I say "Get the monster! Get the monster!" and Byrd says "Monster, monster!" from under the covers, and Felanie jumps around on top of him biting and barking and having a great time. She also likes to play "chase", where either I or Byrd chase her around the house or yard, then we turn around and let her chase us. Agility is also great fun for her when her hips are not bothering her. She frequently goes off-course just to get on the teeter-totter or the dog walk, her two favorite obstacles, and since we don't compete seriously, I admit that I don't try to stop her. She's having fun, and that's all that matters.

Felanie is very sweet and loves attention. However, poor early socialization by her previous owner has caused her to have a small skittish streak, especially around strange people and objects. So whenever anyone comes to our house, she barks a lot and circles the person warily from a distance. It takes her about ten to twenty minutes, and then suddenly the stranger is her best friend and she will solicit petting and love. This sort of reaction does not happen outside of our home - when off our property, she is immediately friendly with all who approach.

The temperament test was not easy for her, primarily because she is so easily frightened. During the test, she was very nervous because everything was so strange. But she stuck it out and really did very well. The only obstacle she had real troubles with was the umbrella test, where an umbrella is opened rapidly in front of the dog. Felanie panicked and tore off across the test field, dragging me behind, but even after that, I still managed to get her to come back and sniff the umbrella by pretending there was a treat stuck to it. At the end of the test, we left the course with an official ATTS Temperament Tested title.

Some people wonder why, since I'm so strongly against ear cropping, Felanie's ears are cropped. Her ears were actually cropped by her previous owner in an attempt to make her look scary and intimidating. My husband, who knew her when she was a puppy, says that her natural ears were huge and floppy. I wish I had gotten to see them.

We did choose to dock Felanie's tail. That was a strictly medical decision. Felanie had a very, very thin tail, and was also a major tail wagger. Her wagging tail could bruise my shins, and we considered it the most dangerous part of her body. The force of her wagging often caused her tail to split open and bleed when it knocked into things. One day she wagged her tail right into a razor-sharp piece of aluminum flashing and sliced it open in two spots. After weeks of continued bandaging and vet visits, the tail still was not healing up. Every time she wagged her tail, the bandage would fly off. If she wagged her tail into something, it would open up and start bleeding again. I was constantly wiping blood off the walls. When Felanie wagged her tail, Byrd and I would lunge at her, grabbing at her tail frantically to stop it from moving, and that scared her. The vet even prescribed a sedative to make her too groggy to wag her tail, but in fact, that was the only thing she did do while half asleep.

After a discussion with the vet and several days of thought, Byrd and I decided the best thing for everyone would be to dock her tail. Tail docking is not usually done on adult dogs; it is a difficult surgery and there is a high risk of infection. Felanie did in fact get a bad infection that caused major scarring on her tail, but since she couldn't wag the bandage off and it was hard to lick at her stitches, she recovered relatively quickly, and her little stumpy tail has never caused any problems since then. It's too short to knock into things. It's not very attractive, but I believe in her case docking was the only appropriate choice.

Dozer retains his natural ears and tail, and I would never crop/dock those without a legitimate medical reason.

The road we traveled

Felanie, my first dog ever, was a total accident - and a two-year-old pit bull. She was left behind when her owner, fleeing the law, moved out of the house we moved into in 1999. I was terrified, and so was she. My husband was more familiar with dogs and, combined with our love of animals, "Felony" (as her previous owner had called her) stayed with us, though I was frightened of her. I did not understand dogs, but I recognized the universal animal body language that said, "I don't like you and I don't want you near me." I avoided her, and the feeling was mutual. When my mom found out about Fel, she freaked out, and told me I would be slaughtered in my sleep by this dog. That really didn't help me feel better.

What I learned a little while later changed my attitude. Fel had not been socialized and her owner subjected her to physical teasing for his own amusement. Pinching, shoving, stepping on her feet, chasing her - he laughed to watch her yelp and run away. She had been to the vet once - to have her ears cropped, to make her look vicious. After all, he didn't buy this pit bull to be a cute and sweet companion. To his disgust, she still did not become mean. She became timid and frightened of strangers. Of me. Of Byrd. I realized this scary, growling, slinking, darting, hiding animal that I saw in my house was not a true dog. Rather, she was a creature filled with fear and pain. Her real dog soul was buried, hidden away after two years of mental abuse.

The rest of the story follows naturally. I read about pit bulls, researched dog behavior, took her (and myself) to obedience classes, talked to behaviorists, and went about grabbing every bit of information I could. Working with her, I learned how to mend a broken heart and spirit. A true dog shines within her now, and I am ashamed to think that I was once scared of this wonderful, loving, gentle companion. Though she is still shy, she loves to be with people, loves to be petted and hugged, gives kisses, wags her stumpy tail and butt passionately, and exudes a confidence and joy that she was cheated out of for the first two years of her life. She is our "pretty girl", our princess, our family. Oh, and she's my mom's favorite "grandbaby". Were she still with her previous owner, I have no doubt that she would have lived a life of misery, hopelessness, and fear.

That was my first encounter with a pit bull, and it changed my life and challenged my beliefs.

Other Pages:

Felanie and Dozer

Dozer