Making Big Strides towards ending Breed Specific Legislation!

My now two dogs (we lost our beloved elder bull Buddy a few months back to lymphoma) are Rocco (brown, 3 1/2 years old) and Vinny Loops (gray and white, 8 years old). I picked up Loops when he was barely 7 weeks old and was languishing in an underserved shelter in LA. Rocco was in his mama’s belly when she was rescued by “It’s the Pits Dog Rescue” https://itsthepits.rescuegroups.org/ from a Coachella shelter.  We had their DNA tested and Rocco is 89% Staffordshire Terrier and 11% Boxer. Loops is a straight up Heinz 57, Staffordshire Terrier, American Bulldog, Old English Sheepdog mix with Llapso Apso, Cocker Spaniel, and Irish Otterhound. 

They are similar when it comes to their never-ending deliciousness but have very different personalities. Rocco is a complete mush ball and just Be-Bops through life. Loops is very cat like, super smart, obedient, hysterical and knows how handsome he is. 

I’m a transplant from NJ. We moved out to southern California in 2007 and I live with my husband Chris and our dogs in rural east county San Diego. I’ve been a nurse for just about 18 years and work in pediatric oncology.  

I met my SoCal Pitbull TEAM co-founder, Corinne D’Ambrosio, back when we were both volunteering for Pinups for Pitbulls. Shortly after becoming instant friends, we realized we shared the same vision to help dogs locally and formed our own 501(c)(3) non-profit SoCal Pitbull TEAM (socalpitbull.org). We are an advocacy group and have met and worked with so many amazing people along our journey.  In 2019, our organization celebrated its Six Year Anniversary. 

We started out by speaking on behalf of pit bull type dogs at city councils, bringing my then therapy dog to schools and providing canine compassion classes for kids. We do lots of fundraising which is then allocated to rescues and like-minded organizations.

Our biggest donation to date was to the Humane Society of Imperial County, we raised $9,000 and helped fix one of their ancillary buildings by installing new floors, painting and supplying new kennels. We also just provided our second Canine Good Citizen certification scholarship for local Pitbull type dogs. 

Our ultimate goal is to finally see an end to breed specific legislation (BSL), a decades-long discriminatory practice that unfortunately still exists in some cities and states. The good news is, it’s on the decline, big time. With the advent of canine DNA analysis, the dogs most frequently labeled as “pit bulls” are being recognized as the adorable mutts they are, essentially making visual breed identification an antiquated practice. This info along with the current science is helping debunk the myths and misconceptions of the past.

We won’t stop educating until BSL is an unfortunate, distant memory. 

Head over to https://www.socalpitbull.org/ to support these amazing dog lovers who give so much of themselves to help end discriminatory practices against Pit Bulls.