‘Dangerous’ dogs need care, not summary executions
Positive experience with a rescue pit bull shows there is always a better way than killing a dog
Back in 2001, I adopted a male pit bull from Animal Services in Albuquerque who had been written up in the Journal and had been on television news for his attack on a horse and rider in the bosque. He had a double compound fracture of the right rear leg, and because I picked him up on Christmas Eve 2001, I named him Nicky, in honor of St. Nicholas.
He was skinny, down to 30 pounds from the normal weight of 70 pounds, and no wonder he had attacked a horse: he was starving to death! I paid a vet/surgeon to rebuild his leg, a successful surgery really against all odds. He survived and thrived another 12 years, dying Dec. 9, 2013, at the age of almost 19 from complications of kidney failure. He was laid to rest just northwest of Santa Fe off Tano Road.
He had been condemned by the city of Albu- querque as vicious and dangerous and worthy of euthanizing, but I managed to get him up to Santa Fe. Animal Services informed me that the woman on the horse ... wanted that dog killed. Animal Services demanded then a certificate of castration, and when one wasn’t forthcoming, they threatened to send the State Police to pick up the dog and have him executed! I fought all of this by writing a letter to (then-Mayor Martin) Chávez, absolving him and the city of Albuquerque of all responsibilities, both fiscal and criminal, for this dog’s future. No one ever bothered me again here in Santa Fe about this animal.
Further, he never bit or growled at any human or dog in the following 12 years, not once. He was Mr. Mellow, a total pacifist, almost like Gandhi had schooled him in canine behavior, and despite the hubbub surrounding his attack and his subsequent adoption, both of which were on several TV news cycles in Albuquerque, he never did anything problematic the rest of his life.
... I urge you all to ... try to comprehend that even the most apparently dangerous dog can be reformed and not summarily executed just because there seems to be no alternative. There is always an alternative with dogs.