[Hound Dog Mom]

Hi DieselJuni –

The prejudices against bully breeds are unfortunate and in most cases unwarranted. I work for an open admissions humane society and at any given time our dog population is between 50% and 75% bully breeds and bully breed mixes. We have a lot of issues with individuals wanting to adopt bully breeds and their landlords not allowing it and even issues with people who do adopt, then a months or years down the road move and have to return the dog because they can’t find a new landlord that will allow a bully breed. When I was growing up we got a german shepherd, this was back in the 90’s when the public perception of shepherds was still really bad (I do think it’s improved quite a bit since then) – my mom owned our home, so that was fine, but our insurance company dropped us because we got the shepherd and we had to get new insurance and pay way more. She was the nicest dog ever and wouldn’t have hurt a fly. It would be nice if landlords and insurance companies could actually base their decision on the individual dog – like possibly make exceptions for all the breeds with bad raps (pits, shepherds, rotts, etc.) if they received a signed behavioral evaluation from a certified trainer or behaviorist or passed their canine good citizen test.