Breed Discrimination

Scooter came to us as a foster dog from another rescue. He was picked up in a stolen car in Northeast Minneapolis. When he came to our home this giagantic red nose pitbull was wearing a large leather coller with spikes. So the rescue decided to name him Spike. The first thing we did was throw away that ugly collar and put on a perfect orange and yellow collar. Then we decided we would wait a day or two to find a better name.

Scooter was the biggest marshmellow to ever enter our home. He licked everyone until their skin was raw. 8 week old puppies would crawl all over his 80 pound frame and he loved it. He would wake the puppies just to get them to play with him. A man came to our home to see a puppy and knelt down to pet Scooter. Scooter pushed him over by licking his whole face. When I told the man that Scooter was a pitbull he laughed and said he could now describe the inside of a pitbull's mouth.

We picked Scooter's name because his neck was so large that he could not turn around and clean himself. After Scooter pooped he would scoot across the runner just inside the door. We quickly put baby wipes next to the door.

When we got the call that a man wanted to meet Scooter I was thrilled. I was beginning to think he would never leave. Pitbulls are very hard to get adopted. The man asked only if I thought Scooter would get along with chickens. I thought he was crazy. I said I had no idea but I thought he would like them with salt and pepper. He said he wanted to give it a try. He lives on 53 acres of hobby farm with chickens and lambs and a cat. We took Scooter to the farm and watched him set off to explore. He went behind a shed quickly followed by a chicken. It only took about 10 seconds to hear squaking and to see Scooter running away from a chicken as fast as he could. He is still terrified of chickens but loves the baby lambs.

A couple of months after Scooter was adopted we got a phone call from his new owner. There had been a pretty bad wind storm and the man worked nights so he was home sleeping when the wind hit. He looked outside and saw some shingles in his yard so he quickly ran outside wearing only his jeans and grabbed the ladder and climber on the roof to survey the damage. He looked behind him to see Scooter climbing the ladder. He yelled for Scooter to get down which he quickly did knocking the ladder down behind him. Scooter's owner was standing on the roof in only a pair of jeans with no shoes and freezing in the wind. He did have a cell phone but everyone was at work at least an hour away so he dialed 911. Shortly a police car arrived on the scene to find a man on his roof shaking like a leaf with a giant pitbull standing below him. They wanted to know if they should shoot the dog. Thankfully they asked first. He had to scream that that was his dog.  Scooter has spent the last five years playing with the baby lambs and sleeping with the cat. Some vicious pitbull.