“Our
lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Martin
Luther King, Jr.
The number of animal cruelty cases
reported on in the daily news pales in comparison to the actual number that are
never reported. Most abuse and suffering goes on unrecognized. It is common in
both rural and urban areas and also crosses socio- economic boundaries. The
most common victims in dog cruelty cases are pit bull terriers. Thirty-three
percent of dogs taken in at shelters in the United States are Pit Bull
Terriers. In some regions, that number climbs to sixty-five percent. The
Mahoning County Pound currently houses fifty seven dogs. Seventeen are pit
bulls.
It seems today that any dog with the label pit bull lives in a
dark shadow. A shadow that has been unfairly cast upon them since the early
80’s. Some cities have even gone as far as banning the breed completely. Media
portrayal and the glorification of violent dog attacks with no backstory on the
individual dogs, has helped to fuel these fires in recent years. Pit bulls and
any breed resembling them are being put down in alarming numbers across the
country on a daily basis. In most cases, for no other reason than human fear.
Most of these animals are doomed from birth. They are malnourished, neglected,
chained out year round, fought, overbred, under socialized, and fighting for
their lives. This is a human problem. Any breed of dog subjected to these
conditions brought on directly by their owners would react with the same
aggression.
A breed that was once used as the mascot for such products as RCA,
Buster Brown, Wells Fargo, and featured as a main character in the popular
television show The Little Rascals in
the 1920’s is now the dog that drug dealers like to flaunt and Americans love
to hate.
While volunteering at the Mahoning
County pound over the last eight months, I have borne witness to the result of
countless acts of violence and neglect shown to man’s so-called ‘best friends,’
especially, it seems, to the pit bull breed. After spending ten to fifteen
hours a week with some of these dogs, I started documenting their new living
quarters. I felt compelled to venture out into the neighborhoods to the
specific locations where these animals were found by the dog warden’s deputies.
Most of these dogs were severely abused in some way by a human and each one of
them still held on to some bit of trust toward us. I bonded with each and every
one of these dogs in a different way. I was fortunate enough to have been given
the opportunity to spend time with these subjects. My hope was to monumentalize
in a way each dog’s character and resilience in portrait form.
