Category Archives: pit bulls

Frankie the Wonder Dog’s Declining Health

Our little man isn’t doing too well. All of his health issues are starting to catch up to him and are really taking a toll on his little body. Rene and I have been doing all we can to make sure that he is comfortable and happy, but as much as we try nature is starting to beat his medicines.

Last night Rene took Frankie to the vet and we got some distressing news – his body is holding fluid and there is a mass in his chest that right now cannot be identified through the fluid.

It was a devastating visit both emotionally and financially.

We have always half joked that as long as we have credit, Frankie will be cared for. Unfortunately we have now reached a point where Frankie’s medical bills have tapped us out.

Frankie is such a good boy. He’s a breed ambassador and makes friends everywhere he goes, not just for himself but us as well. Normally Rene and I like to only show images that show a happy and healthy Frankie, like these:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

But lately he’s really looked more like this:

We have really great vets who are doing their best to care for him, but he has so many ailments that it’s tough nailing down what’s doing the most harm to him at any given time.

It’s really tough to be a Frankie dog right now.

We started a donations page for Frankie back in March when his first major cardiac event and that was a major help. He is alive today because of the kindness of those donors and we have had to reactivate it because of the extraordinary expenses related to his care over the last couple of weeks. Please visit his page at the link below. Any help you can provide goes directly to paying for Frankie’s medication and vet visits. We know after this last visit that there are more trips to the vet coming and likely more medications as well.

Frankie’s Fund

Rene and I do not like asking for help. We took on the responsibility of a dog knowing that it meant that we were supposed to care for him and we do our best to make sure that he is paid for, but there have just been too many bills coming too fast and we don’t want our dog to die of something preventable just because we couldn’t pay for it this week.

Thank you so much for checking it out and donating if you can. Words cannot express how much Rene, myself and especially Frankie appreciate it.

Leave a Comment

Filed under advocate, animals, causes, charity, dogs, family, Frankie, fund raising, health, in real life, love, medical, money, personal, pets, pictures, pit bulls, rene

8 Pit Bull Lies You Might Believe…and just a little bit of commentary.

As you are probably aware, Rene and I are big fans of pit bulls. Rene’s family have had pits for decades and our beloved Frankie is a pit mix (although probably mostly red nose). The dogs have a bad rap, as you are probably aware. The fact of the matter is that they are great dogs who are villainized and have some of their best traits turned to the dark side. The folks at Buzz Feed have produced a great short video about some common misconceptions about pit bulls and I wanted to post it here! Also, because it isn’t directly addressed in the video, pit bull jaws do not lock. They are no different than any other dog jaw. The more you know.

See you next time.

Leave a Comment

January 5, 2015 · 9:00 am

Dogs and Cats, Living Together, Mass Hysteria!

I didn’t sleep much last night.

Charlie the cat got in a fight with the in-law’s dog, Maggie, and while Maggie could have literally swallowed Charlie in two bites, it was Charlie who did the damage.

Not that it wasn’t somewhat warranted. Charlie is NOT used to the environment at their house. He was supposed to have the front room all to himself as he got used to the place. But Maggie is a big dog who wanted to say hello in the most direct way possible and stormed into the room making a b-line for the cat.

I didn’t actually see what happened, I was in another room, but I did see the aftermath.

Maggie: 80 pounds of lovable bruiser who does not know her own strength.

Charlie: 12 pounds of frightened cat who, even at his best, is a bit claw happy.

Charlie did some basic reconstruction of Maggie’s face and there was blood every where – all Maggie’s.

We cleaned up the scene, didn’t take any pictures (we were more concerned about Maggie’s face) and then cleaned up the animals. By the amount of blood on Charlie you would have thought he had a gaping wound on him, but no it was all Maggie blood. Rene even said, “The dog bleeds like she’s in a Quentin Tarantino movie.” 

We cleaned up her face, slathered her in ointment, and she lay, very sad that she and Charlie were not friends, for about thirty minutes before she tried to come into the room again.

So you might be wondering why I’m going into great detail about a cat and dog fight – something that could happen any day of the week.

Here’s a picture of Maggie this morning, on the mend and not too much worse for wear:

Maggie is a pit bull.

Eighty pounds of dog who is strong and determined and, by her physical features, could have killed Charlie many times over – but she didn’t because that was never what she wanted.

Pit Bulls get such a bad rap just because bad people like to teach them to do bad things.

Maggie is bull headed (no pun intended) and a little on the “simple” side, but all she wanted to do was love Charlie. It’s just when you see eighty pounds of dog coming at you in a hurry it’s easy to be frightened. And that’s a big reason why I wanted to address this today. Fear gets in the way of a lot of things, progress and understanding being two of them. And it isn’t just about Pit Bulls (although I do hope that one day soon Farankie won’t be banned from a whole bunch of cities in the U.S. and countries abroad) it’s about a lot of things. Sometimes it worth taking some time to reflect on the things that scare you so you can actually explore why they scare you. When you get past the scariness of it you can start to understand it, and if you understand it then you are that much closer to defeating it.

What do you fear? Would you rearrange it’s face if you had the chance? Let me know in the comments.

See you next time.

Leave a Comment

Filed under breed specific legislation, charlie the cat, pit bulls, politics, society

I Forgot to Show You This!

OMG! How could I not have posted this?!?!? Frankie discovered his love for fountains!

It’s been on my personal YouTube page (but don’t go there, I almost never post there so if you want to subscribe to something go to the WiggyWebs Channel) but I haven’t really shared it with people.

I’m happy to have this horrible oversight corrected now.

Frankie hasn’t retained his love for the fountain. He still enjoys sitting by it, but he’s never recaptured that I’m-going-to-bite-the-water-and-jump-in magic from this first day.

Go ahead, watch it again – HE’S SO CUTE!

See you tomorrow!

EDIT – OK, I was wrong.  I posted this video in the blog right HERE, but it was thrown in with all kinds of other stuff so I’m still going to post it here in its own blog just ‘cuz.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Frankie, happiness, pets, pit bulls

BONUS POST! Pit Bull Activism

People know about Rene and my Pit Bull activism and that we like to help where we can.  This is one of those times.  Here’s the message from our friend:


My brother and his girlfriend volunteer their time at a Pit Bull rescue in San Diego and foster two themselves, which they have just recently fully adopted. Their love for the dogs is contagious and I have become a fan of them as the sweet, playful pups they truly are. Anyway, I know you are a fan of Pit Bulls too. 


The Union Tribune, in San Diego, is instigating another pit bull debate in SD. Please call 1(800)244-6397 ext. 2506 and let them know that we do NOT want pit bulls banned in San Diego County! (It’s all automated.) Press “2” to vote that it’s the owners’ responsibility and not the breed. And feel free to pass this on to others who might be interested.


I don’t fault the Tribune for holding a survey, but I hope that they will structure their article as fact based reporting versus exploiting a villainized breed. 
If you love Pitties too, please call in – especially if you live in San Diego!


Thank you!

2 Comments

Filed under activism, pit bulls, politics

Starting the Year Off with Advocacy!

Here is a great 10 minute movie about the history of pit bulls.  History, stigma and real profiles of real dogs.  Check it out and comment.

Leave a Comment

Filed under advocate, causes, Frankie, pit bulls

Project 365 9-24-2010 Family

I was on the freeway coming back from L.A. when I saw this sticker on the back of a car:

If you squint you can see that it is a guy, a girl and a dog as a little family.  With the exception of the fact that Frankie is a pitbull and not a grey hound as pictured that describes our little family pretty well.  With a lot of our friends having babies or trying to have babies it can feel a bit strange being the only couple that is satisfied with a dog-child, but Frankie is wonderful and I talk about him like he’s a person so it all works out as far as I’m concerned.

See you tomorrow!

Leave a Comment

Filed under Frankie, pit bulls, project 365 2010, rene

Rene Bodelon: Pin-Up


As some of you may know my girlfriend Rene and our dog Frankie posed for the Pin-Ups for Pit Bulls calendar this year! Rene’s photo made the finals and, although she doesn’t have her own month, she is featured with the other finalists on the collage page!

You can buy the calendar at PinUpsforPitbulls.com!

The funds go to helping to rescue pit bulls and helping to rehabilitate the image of these misunderstood dogs. Check out this past blog and this for more details.

Support a good cause and see my lady in lingerie. Everybody wins!

See you tomorrow!

2 Comments

Filed under charity, pictures, pit bulls

A Rene Repost – Why you only Hear Bad Things About Pit Bulls

Below I have reposted a blog from the lovely Rene Bordelon about the villainizing of pit bulls. As I’m sure you know by now, Rene and I have the best dog in the world, Frankie, and he is a pit. The fact that anyone could ever consider him “dangerous” is ludicrous, yet his whole breed is considered evil and more and more there are states, counties and cities using breed specific legislation (BLS) to take good dogs away from their owners just because of their breed.

It is equal to racism, but humans don’t take it as seriously because “they’re just dogs.” I don’t like anybody telling me what kind of dog I can have, especially since Rene & I are very responsible dog owners, and then having the city, county or state saying I can have my dog because of mob fear mongering?! Oh, hell to the no!

Anyway, before I get too worked up, here’s Rene’s blog. I hope you enjoy it.

See you tomorrow!

Why You Only Hear Bad Things about Pit Bulls.


Today I was reading an article about “Heroic Pit Bulls”. It is a good article. Here’s the link: Heroic Pit Bull Article on “Neatorama”.

At the end of the article, as always there are commenters. Some are just happy to see a good article about pit bulls and some are quite clearly obsessed with eradicating them from the planet because “The media tells me they are bad” or “I had a bad experience with one so therefore they are ALL bad”. One commenter with the name of “Limboslam” asked why he (or she, I really don’t know) only ever read or heard about pit bull attacks and not attacks by other dogs. So, another commenter by the name of KMarie wrote this in response and well, I couldn’t have said it better myself. It is awesome. Please read, please share this information with everyone you know and if you are a friend to me, please be a friend to pit bulls and spread the TRUTH about these dogs who have been so unfairly biased against and improperly treated. Please let your local news media know that you are tired of the fear mongering and that you EXPECT AND DEMAND that they show some ethics and truth in what they report to you. Think about it, if they are THIS biased with a breed of dog, can you trust them to honestly and accurately report ANYTHING? We deserve better as people. Even if you don’t care for pit bulls, you should care about the lies the media so carelessly spread to get ratings. THAT should disgust you.

KMarie wrote “Which leads me into a rebuttal for Limboslam. Jill Harness is absolutely correct – the reason you hear about pit bulls is because that’s what the media wants you to hear. A pit bull bite is treated differently than a bite by any other breed, regardless of severity. I’d like to expand the point a bit.

In my county a few years back, there was a front-page headline – “Pit Bull Terrorizes Neighborhood.” According to the Animal Control Officers on scene, most of whom I know quite well personally, what they were actually dealing with was a friendly, playful puppy, eight months old, who had gotten out of his yard and spent about an hour playing the best game of chase ever with his owners and the two ACOs. He was never once aggressive, and absolutely no one was hurt. Several neighbors readily joined in to help catch him. But some residents of that neighborhood barricaded themselves in their homes and pestered the Animal Control offices, the police, and even 911 with frantic calls about a vicious dog who wouldn’t let them leave their homes. And because it was a pit bull, they were taken seriously, and it became front page news. Never mind the fact that he was merely playing, or that his game was to get away from people, not to rush at them. Nope, something happened with a pit bull, so it was newsworthy.

Less than a month later, a lab quite literally tore the face off an elderly man, who required years of reconstructive surgery just to be able to chew again. One of the directors of the local shelter where I volunteer called the paper (same one as above) to report on the incident, and was told (exact quote), “Nobody wants to read about that. Call back when you have an attack by a pit bull.” And then they hung up.

And that, Limboslam, is why you only read about pit bull attacks.

These are just some of my personal experiences, but this sort of thing would seem to be common practice. There are some pdfs on this page – http://nationalcanineresearchcouncil.com/dog-news/ – that illustrate just how wide a gap there is between reporting on pits and reporting on any other breed.

I contend that such irresponsible reporting is a far bigger problem than dog bites by themselves. By labeling pit bulls and rottweilers as “bad breeds”, and by focusing only on the worst possible examples of those breeds, by painting that as typical of the whole, the media is saying that these dogs are the unsafe ones. By unspoken-but-universally-assumed association, all other breeds are therefore safe. Not only is that completely untrue, it’s a dangerous misconception, particularly when children are involved. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people make this point, and it’s completely right – the difference between an attack by a seventy-pound pit bull and an attack by a thirty-pound collie doesn’t make much difference when the baby only weighs fifteen pounds itself, lives on the floor at the dogs’ level, doesn’t understand warning signs, and can’t run away from them.

And, statistically speaking, the overwhelming majority of dog bite victims are children. But breed is not the common denominator when it comes to bites. The ONLY common denominator is that most dog bites occurred when the parent was not supervising either dog or child. Children and dogs do not come with an inborn set of instructions on how to relate to each other, and unless BOTH are taught how to respect each other, you run the risk of tragedy. Now, if THAT could be put into the public mind as the main reason for dog bites, then I daresay we’d see a drastic drop in the number of bites. But as long as people keep thinking that this will never happen to them as long as they steer clear of certain breeds, it will continue. This question of breed is nothing more than a fear-mongering, paper-selling, sensational distraction from the actual problem and its actual solution.

If you want true, factual information about any of this – this breed, dog bites, dog behavior – sadly, you cannot trust the media to tell you the truth. You’re going to have to do some research yourself, and maybe even go out and meet a pit bull before you issue a blanket condemnation of the breed based on what you read in the paper or saw on TV.”

She also had some smart words in another comment where she wrote” In my experience, people who love pit bulls are the ones who’ve met them. Those that think they’re dangerous or demonic or equivalent to a mountain lion or a loaded shotgun are people who have never met one, and only ever seen them on the news or read about them in the paper. I find it astonishing that personal experience is discounted time and again, dismissed by people who say, “Well, you’ve never met a bad one” or “You’ve been lucky so far, but don’t ever trust it” or “They just randomly turn on you, you can’t see it coming” – these sorts of comments, almost without fail, coming from someone who wouldn’t even pet a pit bull if offered a chance. What makes that person more of an expert than me, who lives with one, every single day? Why does that person deserve a soundbite on the news, when by their own admission, they would never have anything to do with these dogs?

For that matter, why is the occasional attack (by a chained-up, unsocialized, untrained) dog treated as though it’s a truer representation of the breed as a whole than the hundreds of licensed therapy dogs? Or the K9 police units that can only use this breed as drug dogs because they lack the necessary aggression to do work typically given to German Shepherds? Or the literally hundreds of thousands of dogs every single day that do not bite anyone? It’s mind-boggling, and infuriating, and frequently heartbreaking, because that sort of media bias and misinformation is exactly what leads to breed-specific legislation – outlawing of pit bulls, where the innocent majority are lumped together with the handful of guilty aberrations and labeled ‘Vicious’, ‘Dangerous’, or ‘Only Safe Once Dead’ despite all objective and subjective evidence to the contrary.”

I don’t know who KMarie is, but I kind of love her.

Posted by Rene~ AKA Lil Vixen

1 Comment

Filed under fear mongering, goverment, pit bulls, rant, REVOLUTION, scare tactics, social commentary

Power to the Pit Bulls!


In an ongoing effort to make sure the whole country doesn’t legislate against my dog here are some fun quotes and a great informational website.

Quit punishing my dog because of stupid irresponsible people!

Pit bulls are famous, in circles of knowledgeable dog people, for the love and loyalty they bestow on anyone who shows them a smidgen of kindness.
–Linda Wilson-Fuoco, journalist

In my opinion, Pit bulls are the least likely to be human aggressive. On the whole, you have to do a lot of work to make them aggressive to people.
–Sue Frisch, Dessin Animal Shelter manager

Pit bulls are especially good at pleasing people since they are strong and smart, they learn quickly and they are very adaptable.”
— Rob Mullin, dog trainer, owner, “K-9 Wizard & Co.” Trumbell, Connecticut

2 Comments

Filed under education, Frankie, pit bulls, quotes