4 months ago
SACRAMENTO, CA - Cleaning up the image of the Pit Bull -- that was the goal of a Sacramento group who strolled their terriers through Old Sacramento Saturday.
Saturday was National Pit Bull Awareness Day, a day designed to clean up the image and disspell the myth of the pit bull as a dog that isn't family friendly.
The group Sacramento Responsible Pit Bull Lovers gathered together nearly 40 well-behaved pooches to meet and greet Old Sacramento visitors to represent responsible pet ownership.
"We're just trying to clean up the image of the pit bull and represent the dogs as well-trained, properly-owned, lovably family pets," group organizer Amy McMullan said.
The walk came one day after a 17-month-old Merced County boy was mauled to death by a pit bull in Delhi. McMullan said incidents like those only make it harder for people to understand the positive characteristics of their faithful friends.
"I really attribute a lot of that to bad ownership," McMullan said. "These are really popular dogs. Whenever you have that many animals owned, you've got a larger statistical probability of incidents happening. It could be any dog."
McMullan said misbreeding of pit bulls by untrained backyard dog sellers also contributes to the bad image and overall bad reputation of the dogs.
The group walked through the masses of tourists around blocks and blocks, paws clicking Old Sac's wooden board sidewalks -- all with no problems.
Several of the pit bull owners in Saturday's walk said they always get good reactions from the onlookers and have never gotten a negative response.
Written for the web by Damien Espinoza, jdespinoza@news10.net
News10/KXTV
