During the summer, while visiting my kids' grandparents, Jack, my eight-year-old son, and I decided to take Cricket, the family pug, for a walk on an undeveloped piece of land nearby.
It's the kind of place that's good for throwing rocks and sniffing stuff. Overgrown vegetation is all around.
As we were heading back from this mini adventure, there was a rustling in some nearby bushes and out bound two dogs, easily identifiable as pit bulls.
They were doing nothing menacing. In fact, if dogs can smile, these two dogs were smiling. Their heads and tails were up in a posture that was nothing but friendly.
Still, I was scared for my young son and my very short-legged pug, who I quickly picked up.
I instructed Jack to walk, not run, in the direction we were headed. I held Cricket high with no dangling tail or legs.
The pug, who barks at anything with four legs, was scared into silence while looking at me with big, brown eyes that seemed to plead to be saved.
In my mind, I was wondering if I could offer the 20-pound pug to the pit bulls as a snack while the boy and I made our escape. (Sorry, Cricket.)
In the end, it was a tense couple of minutes while the pit bulls circled us, sniffing and inviting us to play. They were eventually distracted by two nearby cyclists (sorry, you're on your own) and we retreated to the safety of Grandma's house.
Is this a tale of narrow escape? Were the pit bulls deciding how much of me they could eat without spoiling their dinner?
Thankfully, we never found out. But whether the danger was real, my fear was. Certainly the dogs shouldn't have been off-leash, but beyond that, they were victims of bad press. Bad public relations.
The danger posed by this breed will continue to be debated in light of a scary story out of Saanich about a newborn baby girl being mauled by a mixed-breed pit bull.
It leads to comments like this:
It takes only a Google search to reveal that pit-bull attacks are the most common of all dog breeds. They are also widely reported by news outlets because of the damage they can do.
It's unlikely the debate on our website or Facebook page will settle the matter. In fact, I would caution pit-bull lovers from using anecdotes ("my pit bull may lick you to death") to make a point.
There are just too many stories out there about pit bulls doing more than licking.
The only way to convince people that pit bulls aren't dangerous is for pit bulls to stop biting people.
