Pit bulls deserve a break today

Dear McDonald's,

Wanna know what's risky? Offending pit bull owners across the country.

Social media was all a-Twitter today with the McDonald's radio ad for its new menu item. Several of the pit bull groups I follow via Facebook posted a notice as well. The radio spot says trying a new menu item at the fastfood chain isn't risky, and suggests somethings that are ... like petting a stray pit bull.

I wanted to embed the YouTube clip here, but guess what -- it's been pulled.

See, McDonald's underestimated the response not only of owners, but animal activists, rescue organizations and many others. It's pretty amazing that a company that big, didn't have one person who stood up to say "Hey, should we think about this for a minute? Getting breed-specific can be pretty touchy." We are hoping this doesn't affect the rescue efforts of the Animal Protection Center or other shelters.

The ad could have simply said, "You know what's risky? Petting a stray dog. That's risky."

Instead, they went the other way. I hope the fallout is huge and lasts a little longer than the usual outrage over stupid advertising mistakes. Responsible pit bull owners work too hard to change the image that media continues to perpetrate to have it blown with at 30-second commercial for an artery-clogging conglomerate.

Casey-Leigh Stock, an organizer with the New England Bully Breed Club, drafted a fabulous letter to the company, reminding anyone who reads it that this is an old and noble breed made up of war heroes and "nanny dogs."

There's a nagging little part of my brain that says McDonald's new what the fallout would be and was banking on the free media. In a way, I feel like I'm playing into their greasy corporate hands.

At the same time, I don't really care. My daughter has refused to eat a that place since seeing "Super Size Me," although I've tried to point out everything in that movie that was manipulated to make a point. Now, she has a real reason, as does the rest of my family.

The only reason I'll take them to McDonald's after today is so Hathaway can make his own little golden arch on the sign out front.

12 Days of Hathaway, Day 1

I was going through pictures recently to make the grandparents their annual kid calendar (oops, I hope I didn't ruin the surprise), and found a bunch of goofy Hathaway pictures that I thought would be fun to post in the days leading up to Christmas.

This one is from last Christmas. He liked to sit at the top of the stairs amongst my step-mom's Santa Bears. This is a pit bull version of "Where's Waldo?"

"There's nobody here but us bears ..." is also entered in a contest on the Bank of Easton Facebook page. It's a benefit for the Animal Protection Center of Southeastern Mass. (APCSM), which needs all the donations it can get right now. Hathaway has generously suggested that should he win the gift card prize, he will give it to the shelter as well.

So like the good folks in Chicago, vote early and often. Share the link with your friends.

Catching up

I was making my traditional holiday calendars for the grandparents the other night and came across a bunch of great photos ... of the dog. Not so many of the kids as they start to get older, but lots and lots of the dog.

My mom doesn't mind that one of her grandchildren rarely bathes, has a wet nose, is a quadruped and thinks the world is his bathroom. My step-mom, however, states emphatically over and over that "the dog is not one of my grandchildren!" Of course, this makes my sister and I even more emphatically insist that she is, simply for the pure entertainment value.

The irony is that the dog (mine or my sister's) is probably the best grandchild ever. He'll eat whatever you want to feed him without being picky or complaining. He doesn't want you to chase him around the house all day unless you want to. He's happy just to lay at your feet while you play Scrabble on Facebook or do "research" on the computer. He doesn't fight with his brothers or his friends or his cousins and he doesn't pout. He doesn't leave his stuff all over the house. You can read the books you're interested in and he doesn't hog the TV or the video games.

Of course, he prefers crunching Legos to building with them and he's kind of a sloppy eater. And he can't call to say hello or thank you or 'I got all A's on my report card." He can -- and does -- give just as many kisses and hugs and never gets tired of sitting in your lap.

The problem, not the answer

Wondering if it's the dog or the way it's raised? Just look at Michael Vick. Deserved or not, BET starts a 10-part series Feb. 2 on Vick, the NFL Pro Bowl quarterback who spent more than a year in prison for running a dogfighting operation.

The series will supposedly show us how he's turned his life around after throwing away what could have been a spectacular career and being directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of countless pit bulls and other dogs.

"This is hard to imagine myself doing this years ago," Vick says in one of the episodes while walking through the former Bad Newz Kennels.

Memo to Michael Vick: It wasn't all that long ago when you were putting two dogs in a pit until one of them killed the other. It wasn't that all long ago when you hanged and drowned and beat dogs dead -- dogs like mine in this picture -- because they didn't perform.

Michael Vick is part of the reason pit bulls have the reputation of brutal killers. He, and too many others like him have fed the belief that the dogs were bred to fight, and have raised them solely for that purpose, perpetuating the problem. The misconception means that more good dogs -- good pit bulls -- die every day.

I don't mean just the ones who are raised to get thrown in the pits and fight to the death, but the ones sitting in shelters who can't get adopted because of the public perception. Dogs that have never fought a day in their lives or been taught to do so. If people won't adopt them, they are euthanized. It's not a gruesome as a dogfight, or electrocution, but the result is the same.

When Michael Vick was first arrested and sent to prison, a lot of people started taking a second look at pit bulls. Slowly, people started to learn about the breed, learn that they are bred and prized for their "gameness," and that "gameness" is very different from aggression.

Michael Vick did his time, lost an awful lot and is trying to rebuild his life. A 10-part special of him saying I'm sorry and realizing it was "pointless" doesn't absolve him in my eyes. However, how he conducts himself from here on out will. Hopefully he will advocate for the dogs and educate against the lifestyle.

I do believe we all deserve a shot at forgiveness; at some point in our lives, we all deserve a second chance. Vick got his with the Philadelphia Eagles this season, and yet another with this TV special.

I just hope some of these dogs sitting in shelters get another chance as well. My guess is they are much more deserving than the quarterback.

Meet the pit bull in my bed

This is Hathaway. We found him at the animal shelter in Brockton, Mass., quite by accident, but sometimes that's the best way of finding something.

When we went to look at the dogs, I had no intention of bringing one home, especially not a 2-year-old male pit bull with the head the size of a battering ram. But he looked at me with his big brown eyes. And the kids looked at me with their big violet and hazel eyes, respectively. And then they used logic.

"Can we just take him for a walk?"

They didn't say "sucka," but they might as well have been thinking it. We walked Hathaway and played with Hathaway and wrestled with Hathaway and petted Hathaway. His kisses weren't slobbery. He didn't look like he shed much. He didn't bark. He was housebroken. He listened to commands. And he was really cool looking.

But that day, we left him there. Still had to think about a 2-year-old pit bull "mix." And not just that -- he had a skin issue and was already returned once because of separation anxiety. He had broken two crates and a door. Apparently his head was shaped like a battering ram for a reason.

I went back twice to visit and play with him and talk to the staff at the shelter -- formerly the MSPCA and now the Animal Protection Center of Southeastern Mass. I said I had to be sure with two young kids in the house. The caregivers said fostering was an option.

We brought him home on Aug. 29, adopted him outright on Sept. 10, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Life with Hathaway is a daily adventure, to be chronicled here daily, with any luck. The goal is to entertain doggy style and maybe to show pit bulls in a different light.