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Ares
hi. I'm Ares. I am an American Pit Bull Terrier, American Dog Breeders Association #536000-61. I'm almost twelve years old this year and have lived with my mom since 1989 when I was only five weeks old.
a lot of people seem to think that us pit bulls are mean and vicious. not true! we are actually one of the best family dogs there are - loyal, loving and we hardly shed at all. the reason that you hear so many bad things about pit bulls is because we're tough looking, which means that tough guys that want tough dogs buy us and try to make us mean. but we're not naturally mean, so it makes us neurotic.
here are some famous dogs that you probably remember as friendly, happy, trustworthy dogs. petey from the little rascals. tige from buster brown. the mascot dog from the RCA victor company. what do they have in common? they were all pit bulls. so, the next time you see a dog like me, ask its human if you can pet him. talk to his human about what kind of dogs pit bulls really are. I'll bet you'll be surprised.
I'll bet too, that if drug dealers and other bad guys like them thought that black labs would make good guard dogs we'd be hearing a lot more about vicious black labs and a lot less about vicious pit bulls. let's face it, the kind of environment in which those kind of people bring up innocent little puppies would be bound to make any dog neurotic, mean and hating.
mom did a lot of research before finding me and knew that I would be the kind of dog she always wanted - a best friend and a good protector. mom used to be a bodybuilder and knew that a pit bull would grow to be a muscular animal built as good as she was (ancient history, check the workout page). she also knew that I would be athletic and able to run as far as she could at 10:00pm at night, keeping her company and keeping her safe. when I got older, I also used to follow along behind her while she rode horses at a breakneck gallop through the woods near southern illinois university in carbondale, at Egon's farm where mom used to train horses.
even though pit bulls are not mean, we look mean and we can certainly sound mean. this was an advantage when we lived in Oak Park, Illinois in 1990-1991. we used to live in a big apartment building next door to four football players that all lived together. one day, when I was home alone, someone broke into the football players apartment and robbed them blind. the robbers came to our door but I barked like crazy and jumped at the door. I scared them away before they even tried to get into our house.
after four years of having Mom all to myself our family started growing. Mom found out she was going to have a new baby in 1992. I didn't know how this was going to change my life. when Mom first had elaine, her first daughter, Mom's mom (Grandma) was sure that Mom would have to get rid of me. she too had heard all of the bad things about pit bulls and even though she had known me my whole life, she was afraid that I might change into that vicious pit bull she had heard about and eat the baby.
what do you know? I turned out to be even more tolerant of kids than Mom! I loved the baby right away, as soon as she came home, and laid next to the crib and stood guard often. since then we have added two more children to our family and even now in 2001, when the kids put their fingers in my mouth and pull on my tongue, they are always safe with me.
when the kids were babies, I was always on guard. whenever the baby would start to cry, I would go and look at Mom in such as way that she knew that I was trying to tell her. Mom used to have a baby jogger when we lived in Chicago - she would put elaine and grace into the jogger, put on her roller blades, tie me to the handle and off we'd go! we had a two mile run through the city before we got to the lakefront at diversey avenue and people along the way would clear the sidewalks for us.
to this day, I still love them when they are little babies! I love to lick their faces, they taste so good - like milk and baby food. and most especially I like it when they in the high chair and I can lay under it and wait for little morsels to drop. mmmmm!
some of my favorite things to do I can't really do anymore because I have arthritis in my hips and a pinced nerve in my spine that acts up every now and then. but when I was young and bold I used to love to go the beach on michigan avenue in chicago to play with the other dogs near Belmont Harbor and hike in the woods. now I am mainly into hanging out the yard with the family, chewing 2x4's into little toothpicks and being attached to Mom where-ever she is.
ares passed away of old age in may of 2004, on mother's day
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ares' stuff. |
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