Brian sends me the following --

"I am currently the owner of a wonderful terrier mix dog that I adopted this summer from an animal shelter here in Rochester. Her name is Maggie, she is three years old, spayed, healthy, all vaccinations are up-to-date, she is fully house trained and has gone through basic obedience classes at Lollypop Farm.

While Maggie is a great dog, and does not exhibit any people or food aggressions, she does have dog aggression. I have been working with the people at Lollypop to see if she could be helped with her aggression, but we've had limited success."

"Unfortunately, my living situation prevents me from keeping a dog aggressive dog. While Maggie is a wonderful dog, she needs to have a home that allows her to be happy and healthy, but separated from other dogs. I am unable to provide that type of home for her.

I am literally surrounded by neighbors that all have dogs. And while I am very carefully with Maggie to make sure she is managed all the time she is with me, my neighbors are not as careful with their dogs."

"This has resulted in situations where Maggie has gotten into fights with other dogs due to the other dogs not being under control. My fear is that someone will get hurt during on of these fights and I can't allow that to happen. Since I can't make my neighbors get rid of their dogs, I feel its best for Maggie and myself that I find her a new home."

So, there are quite a few issues here.

First off, pit bulls are pit bulls -- and mixes are still somewhat pit bulls --

-- and let's face it, many of them were originally bred to fight other dogs -- not a great part of their heritage, but something that can be managed and even tempered with socialization and training.

BUT, the misnomer of many from this breed is that, "Oh, it doesn't matter if they're a pit bull or not, it's just how you RAISE them" --

Well, this isn't true, in my experience -- these aren't Goldens or Labs, and that's okay -- and in many cases, they're 90 lb. terriers -- like the little Jack Russels and Kerry Blues we grew up with, except 5x larger -- !!

So, for the shelter that adopted the pup to Brian, I think they should emphasize the breed traits quite a bit more, instead of having happy adopters becoming unhappy adopters, as in this case. For more on pit bull temperaments, etc., click here. As responsible pit bull owners, we can only help this breed by knowing their past and their temperaments. Simply ignoring or being unaware of their breed traits hurts pit bulls everywhere.

NOW, on to little Maggie -- !!

If you're interested in giving this girl informed-ownership for the rest of her days, fill out an adoption application above -- !!