Para pensar II

Para pensar

Folga

Nada melhor que uns dias de folga e ir ao cinema, organizar umas coisas e, claro, aproveitar umas horas de boa conversa com algumas amigas brasileiras. Isso realmente nao tem preco.

Fiquei feliz porque finalmente esses dias foram ensolarados e quentinhos, acho que finalmente a primavera esta querendo ficar mesmo por aqui. Oficialmente a primavera comecou desde o dia 20, mas com dias de neve e frios, o que desencoraja sair por aqui.

Agora em maio dois filmes vao estrear, o que deixou a pequena pessoa aqui muito feliz e ja contando os dias para que estreiem. Um deles eh mais uma parceira do Tim Burton e o Johnny Deep - Dark Shadows - e The Avengers.

One more for my collection

Which 'Game of Thrones' Character Are You?

More on Game'>http://www.buddytv.com/game-of-thrones.aspx">Game of Thrones. Created'>http://www.buddytv.com">Created by BuddyTV

Parabens atrasado.

Pois bem, dia 12 de marco foi o aniversario de Recife e Olinda. Pena que nao estive por la para poder comemorar. O coracao ficou pequeno de tanta saudade.

Happy St. Patrick`s day

Happy St. Patrick`s Day, people!!!!

By the way

Amanha (St. Patrick`s Day) sera um bom dia para tomar uma, embora todo o dia eh um dia muito bom para tomar uma Guinness.

Awareness

Os dois textos publicados abaixo foram tirados do Cesar Millan, fevereiro foi dedicado ao pit bull, como minha familia tem uma pit bull achei a iniciativa bem interessante.

Going Pit Bull: How We Can End Prejudice

 

As I was browsing the news this week, a headline caught my eye: “Romney Takes Pit Bull Approach in Florida.” I looked at Junior and wondered if the journalist meant that Romney was going to become a calm-submissive presence, devoted to the American people. But of course, that was not they meant. They meant that Romney was going to fiercely attack his opponents, or in the journalist’s eyes, act like a pit bull.
Seeing pit bulls being referred to in this manner upset me of course, but didn’t surprise me. If any of the candidates running for office think they have image problems, they have nothing on a pit bull. There has been so much bad information spread about this wonderful breed, it’s no wonder that people get nervous when they see a pit bull on the street—people have been trained to think of these dogs as scary and dangerous.

If you watched Dog Whisperer this week, you saw me visit some of the reformed gang members in South Central Los Angeles, who work for Homeboy Industries. I greatly enjoyed meeting them and working with their dogs, many of whom were pit bulls. Now when people see a big guy, covered in tattoos, walking his pit bull down the street, they respond with fear or anxiety. They’re afraid something bad is going to happen. What they don’t know is that the guy and the pit bull are really sweet and loving and not threatening at all. It’s like I said on the show—a breed is like a suit of clothes, it doesn’t tell you anything about the dog inside.

It’s hard to blame people for being afraid of pit bulls, when all they see on the news are stories about dog fighting rings and people being attacked. They usually leave out that it’s the owner who made the dog violent, not the breed. And the news usually doesn’t report all of the amazing stories of the pit bulls making a difference as service dogs, therapy dogs, and search and rescue dogs. Did you know that Helen Keller’s pet dog was a pit bull? Or that Mary Tyler Moore’s pit bull helps her control her diabetes, by alerting her when he can sense her blood sugar is low? These are the stories that rarely get reported.

I’ve been very blessed to be able to travel the world and appear on television with Daddy and Junior and show the true nature of pit bulls. I say that I rehabilitate dogs and I train people, and I want to help educate people about pit bulls, because ending prejudice begins with education. And it’s not just pit bulls, there are prejudices about every breed. So, here at CesarsWay.com, we want to do more to help educate.

We want to spotlight a different breed every month. In February, we’re going to learn more about pit bulls. All month long, you’ll see stories about pit bulls as pets and working dogs, stories about pit bull heroes, funny and touching pit bull videos, and we’ll explore why pit bulls have such a bad reputation which they don’t deserve.

February is always a sad time for me, as it marks the anniversary of when we lost Daddy. But we hope to honor his memory by building on all the goodwill he created during his life. We hope that you will enjoy the stories and hopefully learn something, and pass them along to friends and family, so everyone will see pit bulls for the great animals they truly are.
Who knows? Maybe the next time you hear about “someone going pit bull” they’ll mean being kind, loving, and protective. I’d vote for that.

Stay calm and assertive,
Cesar

How Did Pit Bulls Get Such a Bad Rap?

By Jon Bastian

If current news reports are to be believed, pit bulls have been attacking and biting humans left and right—to the point that many communities are considering breed-specific bans on pit bulls.
Would it surprise you to learn that pit bulls used to be America’s darlings? Before the mid-80s, stories of pit bull attacks are practically non-existent. There is even some confusion over exactly which breed of dog is a pit bull—the definition includes the American pit bull terrier, the Staffordshire terrier and, at times, the bulldog. This confusion seems to have dogged the breed from the beginning, as there is some disagreement over the origin of pit bulls.
Where do pit bulls come from and how did they get such a bad rap?

History of Pit Bulls: Two Possible Histories of Pit Bulls

In one theory, pit bulls began during antiquity as the so-called Molossus, a now-extinct breed that was used by the Greeks as shepherds and guard dogs. In times of war, they marched off to battle with their humans. Eventually, so the theory goes, the Molossus made it to early Britain, where it became known as the Mastiff. In the first century CE, Rome discovered the breed after defeating the Britons, and the dogs spread all over the empire. For the next four hundred years, they were used as war dogs, and intermixed with various local breeds all over the European continent, becoming the forerunners of the modern pit bull.

A competing theory places the origin of the pit bull in England at the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, when butchers would use large, Mastiff-type dogs as “bullenbeissers,” which translates as “bull biter.” Trained to latch onto a bull’s nose and not let go until the animal was subdued, these dogs were the only way that humans could regain control when a bull became agitated.

Unfortunately, this practical if dubious use eventually led to the “sport” of bull-baiting, where dogs were put in a pit with an intentionally riled-up bull and spectators placed bets on which dog would hold on the longest, or bring the bull down. You’ve probably guessed it by now, but this is also the origin of the terms “pit bull dog” and “bulldog.”

Still not a specific breed, the bullenbeissers were bred with Terriers, combining their intelligence with the strength of the Mastiffs. As bull-baiting came to be banned in the 19th century, dog fighting became popular as an underground and quasi-illegal activity in the UK. British immigrants to the U.S. at that time brought dog fighting, as well as their dogs, to the New World. However, as the breed spread to Americans and Americans spread across the continent, pit bulls began to be put to their original use, as general purpose herding and working dogs. Because of their fighting history, though, the American Kennel Club would not recognize the breed until 1936, although they defined it as a Staffordshire terrier, distinct from the American pit bull terrier.

Early Perceptions of Pit Bulls

Far from being considered a killing machine on legs, pit bulls seem to be an American favorite in the early half of the century—indeed, during World War I, the country itself is personified as a pit bull on army recruitment posters, and several pit bulls go on to become famous in the American military. Referring to an athlete as a pit bull is a very common sports metaphor through the 1930s, and it is meant as the highest compliment. There is also a famous racehorse in the late 1930s named pit bull, as well as a number of pit bull stars of early motion pictures. Frequently, pit bulls are associated with children, as in the Our Gang comedies, as well as with Buster Brown, both in short films and as the corporate mascot for a shoe company. The famous RCA Victor image of a dog and a gramophone also featured a pit bull terrier.

From the turn of the century until the early 1980s, there is exactly one dog attack story to make the national papers and mention pit bulls, but that’s probably because it involved a man intentionally siccing a pack of 26 dogs on a young woman. According to a 1947 article in The Independent (St. Petersburg, Florida), “Attorneys said they believed it was the first time the state had invoked a statute which would find the owner guilty of manslaughter if it were proven that he permitted vicious animals to run free and they attacked and killed a human being.” There’s no mention of pit bulls as vicious and no call for a ban of the breed, just a human being held responsible for inducing the dogs to attack. Ironically, though, it is in Florida forty years after this incident that the first breed-specific ban is enacted. In the intervening decades, “pit bull” continues to be a popular description for athletes and when the breed does turn up in newspapers, it’s more often than not in a classified ad for puppies.

The only mention during the 1960s that isn’t an ad is a rather amusing bit from gossip columnist Earl Wilson, who reported in his August 22, 1969 column, “Sonny and Cher, who used to scare people, have now been scared by people. ‘Totally horrified’ by the Sharon Tate murder case, they bought a big dog—‘a pit bull terrier’—to protect them and their little daughter Chaste [sic] at their Hollywood Home...” It is at about this time that using large dogs for personal protection becomes popular, but pit bulls are still not singled out as particularly dangerous. In 1971, a new law allows the U.S. Postal Service to bill people for injuries caused to letter carriers by their dogs, but it applies to all dogs, and the general attitude is still one of human responsibility. In a syndicated New York Times story from 1977 on dog bites, opening with the story of a seven year-old boy receiving a very minor injury from a Great Dane, author Jane E. Brody advises, “(S)imple precautions on the part of the dog owners and potential victims could prevent most of these attacks.”

Pit Bull Change in Perception and Ban on Pit Bulls

Less than a decade later, that had all changed and by New Year’s Day 1986, over thirty communities are considering breed specific legislation and ban on pit bulls. What changed? For one thing, despite being illegal in all fifty states, dog fighting made a comeback in the 80s, and the pit bull is the dog of choice. It is also the preferred guard dog for drug dealers and gangs, with a hugely publicized attack in 1987 in which a pit bull guarding a marijuana crop in California mauls and kills a two-and-a-half year-old boy. By the summer of that year, every single proposed ban has become law, but not necessarily with the support of animal professionals. Kent Salazar, head of Albuquerque’s animal control division, commented at the time of their proposed ban on pit bulls that he didn’t think a ban on pit bulls was necessary, saying, “We have all the means to protect people with clauses about vicious dogs.” He also noted that, a few years previously, Doberman pinschers were the target of such bans. His words went unheeded, and Tijeras, New Mexico, just outside of Albuquerque, passes the toughest pit bull ban of the time, allowing animal control officers to seize and destroy them on sight without compensation to the owner.

The various pit bull breed bans are decried by animal control officials as “the most concentrated legal assault on a pit bull bans they can recall,” as well as “canine racism.” The Houston Chronicle quotes unnamed officials as placing the blame for the problem squarely on humans. “(M)any of the pit bull attacks are due to a skyrocketing number of poorly bred and badly trained dogs raised by backyard breeders, who are trying to cash in on the pit bull’s growing reputation as a cheap, but deadly effective guard dog, particularly in urban areas.”

Nearly thirty years after the beginning of this anti-pit bull hysteria, the tide seems to be turning a little bit, but every step forward is followed by a step back. Even as Florida is attempting to overturn all breed-specific legislation, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin is considering imposing a new ban. Yet it only takes a brief look at the history of pit bulls to realize that the dogs are not the problem; the humans who misuse them are. For over a hundred years, holding the owners personally responsible was enough to prevent attacks, and the breed was perceived as very child-friendly. With outreach and education, it may be possible to restore that image and rehabilitate the pit bull’s reputation, restoring an iconic American dog to its rightful place among mankind’s best friends