What It's Really Like To Live With A Pit Bull In The Province Of Québec
There's been a lot of talk about pit bulls in the news lately.
Personally, I tend to see both sides of this story, and it's a very complicated issue, for sure. But what I can say, with some degree of certainty, is that living with a pit bull in Montreal is - in my experience - pretty great.
My mother, who does not live in Montreal, has two pit bulls.
The first one is a few years old now; she first got him when he was a couple of months old, and at first, no lie, I was terrified.
At the time, I only knew pit bulls as something to be afraid of. I had never bothered to inform myself about their history, characteristics, or anything else. TBH, all I knew was what I'd heard from one-off stories, and that was good enough for me.
Which is super out of character for me. Usually, I like to form my opinions after looking at all the possible sides to a story.
This time, all I knew was that my mom was getting a pit bull, they were all terrifying, and she was nuts.
But I turned out to be very, very wrong.
When I first met the dog, he was seriously adorable. My mom has experience with breeds similar to this, so she knew what she was doing, which helped put a lot of my fears to rest.
The remaining amount of fear was gone once I actually started interacting with him, though. He was super loving, energetic, and incredibly obedient; and although, like all puppies, he was mostly down to just play, whenever my mom was like, "nah, bro, it's time for you to chill," he'd listen, no questions barked.
To this day, he remains the sweetest and most loving animal I've ever encountered.
Just like any dog, though, he can get a little rambunctious. Often, it's when he's super happy (which is a lot of the time) - but thankfully, his owner is always there to take control if he gets a little too excited.
I've never once felt unsafe, or had any reason to feel unsafe, in the presence of my mother's dogs.
Now that things are super uncertain for pit bulls in Quebec, the truth is that it's actually terrifying to live with one.
But in my case, it's not because of the dog. It's because of what might happen to the dog - to people's legit family members - in the future.
Here's the thing, though. I do understand both sides of the story, and I do know that this issue is far more complex than many people think.
I just believe that there's probably a better solution out there than a full-on ban and, in the worst case scenario, a call to get rid of your dog.
