Made Font Page!

The AADR Show this past weekend made the front page of the Daily Oklahoman, the statewide newspaper!!! James's dog Edge is on the front page full color pulling. It is a Wonderful POSITIVE artical! It isn't a short artical either, lol. Yea! One for the home team!


www.newsok.com

http://www.newsok.com/article/1793548/?template=home/main



Canines pull their weight at Pauls Valley show

By Penny Cockerell
The Oklahoman

PAULS VALLEY - Minnie Mouse just couldn’t quite pull her weight.

Along a carpeted ramp inside the Pauls Valley fairgrounds building, the 40- to 50-pound black pit bull terrier wears a dog-sled style leash attached to 670 pounds of steel beams. Her owner, James Bates, fervently coaches Minnie forward while the judge, Bruce Powell, holds a stopwatch in his hand.

The pit bull terrier weight-pull show at this noisy, crowded and, yes, smelly event is full of conversation, with barking from kennels and children romping about. Talk spreads about the new pit bull terrier up-and-comers, breeder “legacies” and where the next barbecue will be held.

This moment, however, belongs to Minnie Mouse. The white-bellied dog has 30 seconds to pull her load for 15 long feet. And like all 83 dogs at this weight-pull competition, she’s nudged every step of the way.

“C’mon, work it. Let’s go! Get down here,” her owner, a former Texas high school weightlifter, hollers 2 feet from Minnie’s face. Minnie wags her tail, but doesn’t budge. The stopwatch is ticking.

Minnie doesn’t make it, and she’s ushered back to the kennel while the show, which started at 7 a.m. and can last until midnight, moves to the next contestant.

It is a weekend that dozens of pit bull terrier lovers look forward to. A friendly family-style event run by various group presidents who take pride in lining up the ribbons and trophies on a table in the corner of the concrete and metal building.

“She’s brand-new,” Bates said. “I’m disappointed, but I’m not mad. Minnie just didn’t have it in her today to engage the cart. You just gotta be patient with them. It isn’t an easy sport.”

Not easy, but certainly popular. Nearly every state in the country has pit bull weight-pull shows and a hard-core subculture of pit bull terrier lovers travel far and wide to compete and to socialize with each other.

Most - but not all - are blue-collar folks with land in the country to raise their share of pit bull terriers, often around a brood of growing kids. Many run their own businesses so they can spend the time it takes to train pit bull terriers to pull weight.

One owner trains his six dogs from 6 a.m. until noon Monday through Friday.

Meanwhile, Odie, a 34-pound pit bull terrier, got a round of applause Saturday for pulling 1,110 pounds, his legs impossibly horizontal as he worked forward. Others privately boasted of having national champions, or pups from champs.

Bates said his dog, Edge, a 90-pound pit bull terrier, won the weight pull in his class, earning him a trophy and plaque. All of them are proud of the prestige their dogs bring.

Yet pit bull terriers have a bad rap, and everyone here knows it. So they’re quick to defend their breed.

“If they ever say it’s illegal to own them, they will have to kill me to get them,” said Ronnie Bailey, who owns 16 pit bull terriers and counting at his Shock n’ Y’all Kennel in Blanchard. “I wouldn’t give you my children, and I wouldn’t give you any of my pets. You’d have to pry them from my cold, dead hands.”

Such strong feelings about pit bull terriers may explain why state Rep. Paul Wesselhoft’s bill to regulate pit bull terriers failed last month with the state Legislature. Several children have been attacked statewide by pit bulls in recent months.

“Pit bull breeders and owners inundated your legislators with e-mails, letters, calls and visits while they peppered me with low-class insults and a death threat,” Wesselhoft, R-Moore, wrote in a letter to The Oklahoman.

Bailey, 26, says he’s been raising pit bull terriers since he was 17. He never had trouble with a pit bull terrier, but said he was attacked as a child by a German shepherd.

Different types of owners

There’s a divide between so-called responsible owners and those who sell them at flea markets or own them as tough-guy status symbols.

Bailey estimated about 25 percent of the owners don’t raise the dogs right. There was a time, he said, when pit bull terriers were raised for fighting. Now they’re raised for working - like pulling weights for sport. And Bailey and others say they teach their dogs manners, just as they do their children.

Responsible owners study bloodlines and temperaments and consider the source of the dog, Bailey said. He says if they come from a flea market, chances are they don’t belong around children, because their backgrounds are questionable. Those folks, Bailey said, give pit bull terrier owners a bad name.

“I’m not gonna lie. I’m redneck from head to toe,” said Bailey, who was wearing a “got beer?” T-shirt. “But there’s a difference. Half the dogs that wind up in trouble are in the hands of people who should’ve been put down at birth themselves.”

Adrian Evans, 27, drove from West Monroe, La., with five dogs ready to compete. Three of them live in his house and sleep with his 2-year-old boy in the bed, he said, while the parents often end up sleeping on a floor mattress.

“They’re spoiled babies. “But they love as hard as they work,” said Evans, a registered nurse who works in an open heart surgery operating room and says he weight-pulls dogs to relieve work-related stress.

As Evans spoke, he unveiled a baby carriage with a toddler inside, cuddling a pit bull terrier puppy.

There are as many children at the weight-pull show as there are dogs and adults. The children pile on bags of dog feed under tables and hang out at the dozens of kennels, which serve as makeshift tables for snacks and drinks. Lawn chairs line the concrete floors and the chill has some spectators covered in blankets.

Keith Sechrist of Oklahoma City says his 11-year-old daughter owns a 34-pound pit bull terrier who ranked third in the nation in her weight class.

“It’s a family sport, like everything else,” Sechrist said. “They’re a great breed. If you ever own one, you’ll never own another breed.”

That’s because pit bull terriers are loyal and loving, these owners say. “We’ve learned from what happened in the past,” Bailey said. “Don’t judge the dog. Judge the owner.”

 

What a great article. Thanks for sharing that. Its nice to see positive press.

 

Man, that is great news. Its so nice for the breed to get good PR at a time when its been under attack.

I hope Weaslehoff gets the Oklahoman.

 

Good Job,,nice article,,hope they do more like this

 

Awesome article. A really enjoyable read for a change.

 

All right, who sent Weaselhoft the death threat? Now fess up!

For some reason I thought Ron Bailey was older than that. (Sheeeeyat, now I feel old.)

 

yeah, discovered that last night, too.

http://www.game-dog.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12834
pretty cool, huh?
nice to see some positive press for a change!!!!