A celebration of pit bulls took place when more than 250 pit bulls and 500 people gathered at Reber Ranch on Saturday, August 29^th.  In honor of their five year anniversary, BullsEye Dog Rescue hosted its first ever public event – Pit Bulls on Parade. And what a day it was! It was an amazing display of all the wonderful traits of the breed and showed the diversity of the owners that have them. 

 

BullsEye Dog Rescue is a registered charity in Washington State and a Federal non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Their board members have over 30 combined years of experience with the Pit Bull "breed" and animal rescue. Their core value is to provide education about the amazing Pit Bull "breed" to the public, current Pit Bull owners, other rescue organizations and shelters throughout the Puget Sound region.   BullsEye is not a shelter. Instead they are a network of foster homes and volunteers working with pit bull friendly, Puget Sound region shelters to give a handful of Pit Bulls a second chance. BullsEye Dog Rescue's Board of Directors consists of a group of very dedicated and talented animal rescue and education individuals.

 

At the event, free CGC (Canine Good Citizen) testing was offered to anyone with a pit or pit mix. Out of the 53 dogs tested, an astounding 50 passed and are now CGC Certified! Very impressive stats!

 

Families Against Breed Bans, also known as FABB, is dedicated to establishing non breed specific legislation that will protect our communities from irresponsible dog owners. This local group had a booth and was there to spread the truth about pit bulls and provide some great resources for people that were considering adopting a pittie and wanted to become more educated on the breed as well as to let people know how to protect their pets from breed bans that are becoming more and more of a threat in our state.  

 

Diane Jessup was on hand to share her wealth of knowledge with attendees. Over the past 35 years Diane has worked with industrial guard dogs, trained and handled dogs in several movies, been certified as a police K9 trainer and spent 20 years as an animal control officer. The amount of good she has done for Pit Bulls is immeasurable. She teaches people how to care for, feed, condition, train and fight breed specific legislation through her website and has been featured on shows like 48 Hours, McNeil/Leher, The O'Reilly Factor, Oprah and hundreds of news shows and articles. She was a great ambassador to have at the event!

 

Animal Critical Care & Emergency Services on Lake City Way had a booth and was spreading the word about the blood bank they operate. Interesting fact: Dogs have two major blood types: positive and negative. Dogs with positive blood can accept either negative or positive blood. Dogs with a negative blood type can accept only blood from other negative donors.   Many pit bulls possess the rarer negative blood type that makes them a universal donor for all dog breeds. Most Pits are large enough to give one pint of blood at each donation and are easy to draw from because of their short coats and thin, muscular layering which allows easy access to the vein. Pitties are typically very people oriented and most have done very well giving blood. It also helps that plenty of treats and attention are provided while at the hospital! Because of their friendly demeanor the donation process is smooth and quick. 

 

Under-Dawgz Rescue brought some of their adoptable pits to the event, and by the time the day was almost over, they had taken applications from three different people looking to adopt three of the dogs there! Hopefully that works out and there are three more happy dogs in forever homes!

 

Under-Dawgz Rescue wasn’t the only rescue there either.  The Seattle Humane Society, Kitsap Humane Society, Seattle Purebred Dog Rescue, the Seattle Animal Shelter, adoptable dogs from Bullseye Dog Rescue, The Big Dog Project, Dog Rescue Around Washington and The Humane Society of Tacoma and Pierce County were all on hand to introduce everyone to the adorable pits they had available for adoption too. 8 month old Roo, who is currently waiting to be adopted at The Seattle Humane Society, was a heart stealer, and so were many of the other great dogs there that need homes. Visit the Adoptables page on the Washington Network home page if you’d like to see Roo and lots of other pets ready for adoption in our area!

 

At the end of the day, when the raffles were done and the dogs and humans were ready to leave, there was a feeling of pride and togetherness between people who know the truth about the misunderstood breed. Overheard was one of the vendors saying “Of all of the events I’ve done, this was the best behaved.” It just goes to show that it’s all about the people on the end of the leash, not the dog.