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mint chocolate chip. i have a real thing about green ice cream...

Anyone who has been in Rotties for over 10 years knows why.

Rottweilers killed over 30 people in the US between 1985 and 2000.



and guns kill about 16,000 people in the US EVERY year. and how many thousands of people die in car accidents every year? i know you're not neccesarily using that statistic to say that YOU think these harsh dog laws should be in effect, but i'm sure there are people, specifically our law-makers, who are using these kind of statistics to raise their fists in the air and rally that 'something must be done!' ... 30 in 15 years is a RIDICULOUSLY low statistic. more people are probably killed every year by falling turtles being dropped on their bald head by eagles trying to break the turtles open. sound improbable? it is but there really is a certain amount of deaths reported every year due to this! my point? that when a death or injury rate is that low, you can not use it as a statistic to do something about it because THINGS HAPPEN! certainly more people die falling on their stairs every year and no one is running about trying to ban staircases. why, then, the dog bans? its all about hidden agendas and lobbying groups. the numbers honestly have nothing to do with it. if death tolls meant ANYTHING to our lawmakers then there would certainly be more gun laws. but because important (and more to the point, rich) groups don't want it that way, then it isn't. even in the case of pit bulls, there just aren't enough deaths every year to justify all of this sudden broo ha ha (that being the technical term lol). just don't ever think that your politicians and lawmakers have your best interests at heart. sorry to sound so pescimistic, but its true.[/size][/size][/size]

here is a story that was on the front pg of our newspaper thursday. has anyone else seen this? sorry if the topic over these specific laws has already been discussed and i missed it, but i just think this is horrible. it actually goes kind of beyond horrible, to me its rather TERRIFYING. that officials can come to our homes and take our dogs away from us and destroy them based on nothing more than how they LOOK? at an average of THREE A DAY just in DENVER? what on earth is going on??? and more importantly, what can we do about this? and if you want to see a very sad pic of a beautiful but scared looking impounded pit that goes with the story, go to http://www.lawton-constitution.com/ftpage/072105.pdf

Dogs in hiding — critics
blast Denver pit bull ban

DENVER (AP) — A few weeks ago, two
police cars and two animal control vehicles
pulled up at the home of Stef’ny Steffan
looking for her beloved 4-year-old pit bull,
Xena. Seven officers hauled the animal off
to the city shelter, putting her on death row.
Xena became an outlaw after Denver won
a court fight and reinstated one of the
toughest pit-bull bans in the nation. Since
May, more than 380 dogs have been impounded
and at least 260 destroyed — an average
of more than three a day.
Dog owners are in a panic. Some are using
an underground railroad of sorts, sending
their pets to live elsewhere or hiding them
from authorities. City officials would not estimate
how many people might be violating
the ordinance.
Some owners, like Steffan, have won a reprieve
for their pets with help from a rescue
group. The group got Xena released by
signing an affidavit stating that the animal
would never return to Denver. The group
took the dog to Mariah’s Promise in Divide,
an animal sanctuary that has accepted more
than three dozen pit bulls from Denver.
For Steffan and her partner, Gina Black,
leaving Xena 60 miles from home was a
lousy option but the only one they had.
“It’s safer than animal control. Safer than
keeping her underground — at least she’ll
be able to play now,” Steffan said. “But
she’ll miss us. We’re her pack.”
Denver is one of three major metropolitan
areas, along with Miami and Cincinnati,
to ban pit bulls, according to Glen Bui, vice
president of the American Canine Foundation.
Pit bull typically describes three kinds of
dogs — the American Pit Bull Terrier,
American Staffordshire Terrier and the
Staffordshire Bull Terrier. But Denver’s
ban applies to any dog that looks like a pit
bull. The animal’s actual behavior does not
matter.
City Councilman Charlie Brown said that
in his judgment, “pit bulls are trained to attack.
They’re bred to do that.”
Critics of the ban use words like “annihilation”
and “genocide,” and the city shelter
has received e-mails likening animal control
officers to Nazis.
“Breed bans are just a knee-jerk reaction
to something that happened in the community,”
Bui said.
Denver banned pit bulls in 1989 after
dogs mauled a minister and killed a boy in
separate attacks. The Legislature passed a
law in 2004 that prohibited breed-specific
bans, but the city sued and a judge ruled in
April the law was an unconstitution al violation
of local control.
Critics of the ordinance say that a blanket
ban on an entire breed is misguided that the
law should instead target irresponsible
owners and all dangerous dogs.

I love pet naming tales! 
Here's ours:

Rosie (the one in the pic): We rescued from the pound and she was a SAAAAD baby there. But the second we got her out of the cage, she was bouncy and happy, and has been ever since. She loves EVERYONE and so we said she views the world thru rose colored glasses... and then named her Rosie.

Lucy: Our Lab/Aus Shepherd/Lord only knows-Mix who looks more like a fox or coyote. My son got to name her and we were watching "I Love Lucy" on TV alot that summer. Our Lucy's a redhead too so he named her Lucy!

Captain: Old family dog that my little brother named before we even got him ("I'm going to get a dog and either name it Shadow or Captain")

Luna: Resued baby whose name was originally Scotty. I had a nephew of the same name that died of cancer and couldn't bare to keep the name. So we came up with Luna, which fit her because she was white and a bit sad. Poor dear...

Maddie: The family dog from the 80s! I SWEAR it took 2 weeks to name her! Nothing seemed to fit! Then one day a commercial for "Moonlighting" came on (Anyone remember that show? lol) and I heard the name Maddie. It fit her to a tee. She was a good old thing who lived to be 16. We miss ya girl...

Smokie: Our rescued cat that the neighbors abandoned. My son named him that because he said he looked like smoke (a grey striped cat). My brother and his wife took him in to raise. Their little boy with autism loves Smokie so much and taking care of the cat is really helping him.

Hazel-rah: A bunny named from the book "Watership Down."

Darwin: Our mud dog - something that is kind of a cross between a fish and a salamander. It starts its life with gills on its head, swims around in water all the time and looks a lot like the Creature from the Black Lagoon when it does! Then it 'evolves' later when its gills fall off and it becomes mostly land dwelling, hence the name Darwin. Poor Darwin, tho, didn't ever really get the hang of his Evolution and died not to long afterward. He was a GREAT fish tho...

Well there's the list. Yes, not all of them dogs, but we can't all be perfect! 

LOL!!!! Thats the best! 
(And thats one long n' lanky St too!)

I have read other people on here also saying that it is nice to know other big dog owners because others think they're crazy, are crazy for having big dogs and kids, etc. Here's my question: What on earth is wrong with all these nosy people with all these opinions on how we live our lives??? I too have received WAY too many comments from people about how I choose to my life with my family, human and otherwise.  When we decided to get my big girl Rosie, you would never believe the amount of disapproving comments I heard because of how big she was, we didn't have enough room, had too many dogs anyways, blah blah blah... I took them all nice enough and in stride, but really, it offended me! It is no one's business but ours, and WHO on earth are we hurting? Still, I get to hear things such as: when I'm on the phone and all the dogs start barking at something, an otherwise well-meaning friend saying "how do you STAND living with all of that?" GRRR! or a usually friendly family member informing me that she thinks that Rosie is 'running' our household just because we haven't been able to train her not to jump on visitors yet and so its a bit of a big to-do when people come over. Please! Even if I thot it was true, I would never tell someone something like that! I just think its plain rude. For some reason when it comes to pets, people think they can say whatever they want to. And also for some reason it seems a bit common for people to be pretty intolerant of big dogs. Too much to handle, making life more unpredictable, I suppose - not to mention hairy, dirty, slobbery and stinky! But I LOVE all of that! I'm with Yaz about the filling of the cup - dogs and kids are part of what make life worth living, and having them together is just even better. I wouldn't trade my girls for a billion $, any more than I would my own son. It all just equals up to more fun, more laughs, more happiness, and more love. Who could ask for more? 
Sorry, just had to rant on that a bit...

Oh my goodness, that is absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing. 
I read something that said dogs are perfect emotional creatures, and also they believed them to be the highest emotionally evolved of all beings. They are loyal 100% of the time, trust with complete faith and sometimes without proof that they should, often give more than they get back, and always show how they feel. Dogs often take care of others for no reason at all (in other words, even when there is no obvious benefit to themselves) - even taking care of other species. Did anyone see the recent newstory about the dog in Nairobi who was found taking care of an infant who had been abandoned? The baby girl was in a sack, and the dog was carrying the sack around in her mouth and nestling her in with her own pups. I wish humans did as good of a job caring about people/beings who are different from them. And if you have dogs and keep yourself open to learning from them, you will learn what unconditional love truly is. Can you imagine how much better the world would be if humans were emotionally more like dogs? Far, far better I believe.