I know, I know I have been MIA for some time now…

Well gang this has been a crazy year, I have completed my dog training coarse, and I am now certified. I am finishing odd another coarse now so that’s why I haven’t been as devoted here.

Last week I got word that a fellow rescuer friend of mine has fallen on hard times, she did a wonderful YouTube video a few years back that I would love to re share now:

Pit bulls – you can be a voice for the voiceless

I am sending out an urgent call to arms on Kym’s behalf, she lost her job a while back and has now lost her home, the home she shares with her two rescued pit bulls Max and Sam, who have a Facebook page Max and Sam we are emma shay’s legacy (https://www.facebook.com/weareemmashayslegacy?fref=ts)  if you want to show them some love.

Kym has worked tirelessly over the years for pit bulls, fighting BSL, and working in rescue, she has given of herself so freely and with an open heart, I have set up a fund-raiser for her in hopes she can secure a new home and to  get set up. Any left over money will go to rescue, shelter aid and care, because that’s Kym, she’s always thinking about ways to pay it forward!  Watching her go through this has been very hard, seeing bad things happen to good people really angers me!

The fund-raiser can be found here:

Helping a rescuer keep her pit bull family together

My sincere wish is to help a wonderful lady, a bank account specifically for her fund-raiser will be opened on Monday and I will update that for those who wish to verify where their donations are going.

Please any fellow rescuers, pit bull owners, advocates, please share the links so we can get help for Kym and her crew as we can, and please if you can donate!

Thank you everyone for hanging in there while I completed my training, thanks for sharing my posts and for standing up for pit bulls and abused and neglected dogs everywhere!

-Apitome-

 

Max and Sam We are Emma Shay’s Legacy, it’s a wonderful new Facebook page by my amazing sister from another mister!

If you love pit bull pages on Facebook than you are going to love this one!

This page was created by a woman I was very fortunate to meet, my friend Kym, who works tirelessly to help pit bulls and other adaptable dogs.

She is an advocate for responsible pet guardians, she fights to stomp out BSL, and end animal cruelty! How cool is she???

She is a real inspiration to me personally and to many others as well. Please feel free to tell your friends to like and share her page, and if you pop by remember to do that same!

NO HATERS PLEASE, lions don’t lose sleep over the opinions of sheep.

Kym.., thank you for all you do, for all the ways you create change and for giving me the chance to meet and get to know a kindred spirit! It’s us, the pups and the minions to the end!

https://www.facebook.com/weareemmashayslegacy

I’m back, where I’ve been and what’s up next

Hi gang!

I have not been posting in a while, mostly because of my dog training course.

I am in the last phase of the program and I have been very busy getting ready for my final, I am looking for some rescues to help me out with an essay I am writing so I am hoping that I get some responses.

I need three shelters or rescues willing to be interviewed by phone I need to know the percentages of dogs relinquished, the reasons why they were relinquished, the percentages  of dogs adopted and percentages of dogs euthanized, and why.

rehabilitation training to prevent dogs from losing potential homes, and training to make homeless dogs more adoptable

Also the numbers and reasons why dogs are returned after adoption.

My goal as a trainer is to keep dogs out of the shelters and to stop euthanizations due to a lack of training, and also to help people to understand how important proper training is and why it should be part of every responsible owners priority and gift to their pets success as a member of our society.

If anyone knows of shelters and rescues interested in helping me out with this please send me an email at apitomesblog@shaw.ca and please include the shelter or rescue name and address, contact persons name, title and phone number.

Remember folks keeping animals safe and out of the shelter systems is or should be a primary goal.

Thank you to everyone that visits my blog, comments, and shares their own experiences, without you all this would all be for nothing! It’s you that have helped me help them, so again thank you very much! I appreciate it deeply!

After graduation I look forward to sharing many things with you all, and getting back to what I love, helping dogs in need and tending to my blog! I am hoping to include some free basic training videos for you all to share and enjoy.

-Apitome-

 

$450 (US dollars) in donations are STILL NEEDED for this mobile spay & neuter clinic in Kern County in May & June.  Please consider donating or helping out as this will help reduce the killings in the shelters in that area – by prevention, which is SPAY & NEUTER.

PayPal Donation http://www.basicneedsfoundation.org/donate.html

Please do all you can to help these mobile spay and neuter clinics really do save countless lives!

Thanks my bully friends and warriors, as you know here at Apitome’s Blog we don’t discriminate based on breed, we help all animals!

 

Hurricane Sandy… Helping the animals and their familes find each other again! Please share!

Starting today I would like to offer to anyone who finds a lost pet, anyone who has lost a pet, or any rescue groups who want to match up pets and their families affected by the hurricane, to post free of charge all listings, posters and inquiries.

You can post a lost add, you can post a found add and you can refer people to the blog for match ups. Each day any emails I receive to apitomesblog@shaw.ca will be posted in an effort to match people to their pets who may have been inadvertently left, or lost due to the hurricane! Please feel free to share this info or drop me a note so we can network effectively to match people and their pets.

I am deeply sorry to all those affected by the hurricane, and to those whom have lost loved ones, you are all in my thoughts through these trying and scary times.

If you send an email pet pls try to include a picture when possible, it does help!

Stay safe out there and may you all be reunited very soon!

-Apitome-

It’s Halloween and the photo’s are in so here’s Apitome’s Halloween Photo Contest winners for 2012…

Here are all the photo’s I received:

#1) Sleepy Baby

#2) Captain Olivia:

#3) The Headless ghosts of the 1700’s:

#4) Baylee and Fiona the sister witches:

#5) Angus and his Ghouls:

    I must say that everyone did a great job on these costumes, I tried very hard to pick just one, but couldn’t, even my daughter couldn’t help me get it to just one, so we came up with a solution. We based our decision on who put in the most effort, and we decided that there will be two winners.

And the winners are: “Captain Olivia”, and “The ghosts from the 1700’s” Congrats to both winners! and to all the contestants thank you so much I can’t tell you how hard it was and how great we thought everyone’s pictures were! The winners will also be notified via email.

Sorry to Sleepy Baby’s mom I couldn’t get mt editor to rotate the photo of your pup.

I will be putting together the gift boxes to be mailed out to the winners again, congrats everyone and each dog was a winner to us! Here at apitome’s blog we don’t discriminate based on breed!

Thanks again and have a safe and happy Howl-o-ween!!!!!

-Apitome-

 

 

Beyond the Myth Free screening for a limited time!!!!!!!!

This is a wonderful documentary! It is an opportunity for those who missed this at other locations and screenings to see it now, Please share this and Help educate those in your area that may not know all there is to know about pit bulls and bully breeds.

Starting today Oct. 26th and continuing through Nov. 2nd, Beyond the Myth will be available on Hulu.com for free! This is an amazing opportunity for all fans, owners, advocates or just people that want to see the real deal, not corn fed lies from dogsbite.org and PETA. It’sa chance to promote to friends via email and social media or put a link to it on your website! The trailer is up and free viewing begins today!

Beyond The Myth video link

I Absolutely want to thank the wonderful folks behind Beyond the Myth, and hulu.com for making this possible and for helping the bully owner and advocate community in busting down these stereotypes and lies about our dogs!

please get this out there, please help create a positive change for these dogs before it’s too late!

-Apitome-

Pact for animals: Military Foster Program

Pact for animals has started their Military Foster Program as mentioned in my last post. Please check out their flyer, and feel free to share it with friends. I urge people to foster if you can, opening your home to a military foster help keep our soldiers and their pets together!

military foster program

Thanks Pact for animals! You and your fostering families are Paw-some!!! Keep up the gret work you do!

-Apitome-

 

PACT for animals, and Beyond The Myth what a great group of people working to save our dogs!

I just wanted to take a moment to introduce some of you to Pact For Animals, this is a wonderful organization focused on ending breed discrimination, for education, and now foster programs for military personnel who would otherwise have to surrender their pets while serving overseas. So please check out there website, share it with friends and if you can help them out with fostering please do so!

I have spoken with Buzz and his team directly and they are all such passionate and dedicated people. Buzz also has helped produce Beyond The Myth for those of you not familiar with it, Beyond The Myth is a film that focuses on breed discrimination, and the pit bull perception, or misconception as is so often the case.

Their websites also offer many valuable resources to Pit Bull/bully owners and advocates. please check them both out today and share their websites with friends.

It’s great to see so many people not just in one country but now, around the globe now willing to not only help these dogs, but also to educate themselves on the various breeds under the “pit bull” umbrella, and see them for what they are.

We are no longer the little engine that could folks, we are making changes that will last a lifetime! As long as we do our part to make sure that our dogs are the best possible ambassadors, and members of the community as well, we will succeed in seeing the end of BSL and bully bias.

I’d personally like to thank Buzz Miller and his wonderful team for creating such a wonderful organization, and doing all they can to help educate the public and tear down the walls of fear the media has built up around our dogs, so thanks Buzz and great work!

As for all the wonderful and dedicated people behind, and in front of the cameras and website at Beyond The Myth Thank you all very much for everything you do! Each person that takes a stand and speaks out against BSL and breed bias is changing the fate of these dogs for the better, and hopefully for a long time to come!

 -Apitome-

Kelly Rippa and the pit bull statement.

Yesterday Kelly Rippa was interviewing Christopher Walken about his upcoming movie Seven Psychopaths, wherein she refers to the types of dogs, a gangster would take by saying “But the gangster’s dog is uh, I mean if it’s a gangster it would have to be a dangerous, uh, Pit Bull kind of dog, right?” now here’s a clip I found on YouTube:

Ok, I certainly do not claim to be the defender of all things ignorant or stupid, and her comment was pretty ignorant, but what we really have here is a woman, who at worst is uneducated about the breed. She has possibly read to many things from websites like (insert laughter here) Dogsbite.org or any of the other hype mongers out there. But it doesn’t make her evil, or even mean, and it certainly doesn’t mean she hates pit bulls. People like Kelly I can live with, because their hearts and minds can be opened, can be changed through exposure and education.

It’s the real haters, the Colleen Lynn (Holder’s) and the Ingrid Newkirk’s, of the world that I can’t stand! Because their motivation is driven by money and hate, or both! Placing Miss Rippa in their company by saying she slams pit bulls, or hates them is truly unfair!

Let’s face facts here folks, it’s not like the wonderful family pet pit bulls, bully’s, staffy’s and mixes, who live uneventfully but happily with a “fam” in the “burbs” makes the most headlines now is it?

No, it’s the dog fighter, drug dealers, food stamp fraudsters, and all around sludge of society, including neglectful or possibly abusive owners that make the headlines with their pit bulls! After all to them making a mean pit bull keeps your stash safe and gives you that all important “street cred.”

So to be fair to Miss Rippa I think everyone needs to take a HUGE step back and analyse how we as responsible loving owners want to discuss and address situations like this, rather than jumping on the attack band wagon (keep in mind here she’s not McDonalds, she didn’t deliberately use the pit bulls negative stereotypes to gain media attention.) She did make a big mistake, that’s for sure, but by immediately attacking someone rather than writing to them, and asking them to show our dogs, the good dogs, offering to introduce and educate them/her about the breed, many of you have chosen to launch for the throat so to speak, and frankly, that once again paints Pittie, bully, and staffy owners as  “aggressive, dominating, and bullying” NOT the image I personally want conveyed about me or my dog.

So to Miss Rippa I offer this… Any time you want to come and experience “Pit Bull Awareness at my house you are more than welcome to come on over and say hey! We don’t bite!

Let’s remember friends it’s “Pit Bull Awareness Month” So let’s try spread the right message! and have understanding for others that may be ingnorant or uneducated about our dogs, give them the benefit of the doubt, some may surprise you!

Thank you,

-Apitome-