Pit of misconceptions

Brooksville, FL -- She was in tatters because she was not big enough or fierce enough.
She had neither rage nor bloodlust. She was much too sweet-tempered to last in the world she was raised in.
She wasn't the boxing glove, she was the punching bag. She was the failure, the joke, the disgrace.
She was a Pit Bull who didn't want to fight.
In the illegal, underground world of dog fighting, a Pit Bull that refused to do battle was a dead Pit Bull.
So Nalla limped around the parking lot, her every refusal showing up on her body as a raw gash or ugly scar.
She was dented by bite marks. Shredded by scissors. Flayed open by garden hoses, which her former masters used to whip her.
Nalla was only 1-year-old and she was piecemeal, a walking wound with four rickety legs held together by clumps of fur. Her former masters had taken her to that Laundromat parking lot outside of Fayetteville, N.C., to sell her.
Potential buyers were debating whether or not Nalla was worthless when Robin LaCalle dropped his clean basket of laundry to stop the sale. LaCalle, a soldier stationed at nearby Fort Bragg, was a dog lover.
He outbid the other buyers, carried Nalla into his car and promised her a better life. Because of his military duties, LaCalle couldn't care for her. But he knew Kim LaCalle, his sister who lives in Brooksville, could.
His sister was in tears when Robin and Nalla showed up on her doorstep last November.
"Nalla was nothing but a pile of meat," Kim LaCalle said.

Bait

Nalla's collection of injuries was like a trophy case from a torture chamber.
The tip of her tail was a bloody pulp, Kim LaCalle said. Nalla's ears were clipped so close to her head they looked like two gaping holes in her skull. Tight collars had sheared off the fur around her neck. She had a severe urinary tract infection.
Nalla was as pulverized on the inside as she was on the outside.
She was afraid of squirrels and birds. The dark terrified her. Nalla would flee when LaCalle used garden hoses to water the lawn.
"She had no self-confidence whatsoever," LaCalle said. "She didn't know what a toy was. She wouldn't play."
LaCalle had just lost two of her Pit Bulls, Zeus and Cider, to old age when Nalla came into her life. She didn't expect to own another. But her lifelong knowledge of the breed, and the soft spot in her heart for them, convinced her to take Nalla in.
With the help of local vets, LaCalle and her husband, Steve, nursed the Pit Bull back to health.
"She's still behind schedule in mental maturity," LaCalle said. "She's 19 months old now, but she's still a puppy because she never had a puppyhood."
LaCalle abhors Pit Bull fighting but she has done her research on it, to raise awareness among dog owners and the general public.
Through her research, she pieced together Nalla's past. She has a theory on what Nalla could have been used for, even if she didn't want to fight.
Her old masters might have wrapped duct tape around her snout, LaCalle said, then thrown her in a pit with a younger, more aggressive dog.
Without her jaws, Nalla couldn't defend herself. But since she lacked a killer instinct, Nalla wouldn't have even made an attempt.
Nalla was bait.
She was a living practice dummy for the Pit Bulls who would become the gladiators.
LaCalle hooked the end of Nalla's leash on a metal wire that stretched 900 feet between two trees in her front yard. The dog then scampered back and forth, only to pause in a square patch of sun to soak in the warmth.
"It's amazing she's turned out this good and this sweet," she said.

Nature vs. nurture

On Feb. 4, authorities searched a home on Wiscon Road for crack cocaine.
Narcotics agents with the Hernando County Sheriff's Office also discovered several animals living in poor conditions. Several were Pit Bulls held by industrial sized chains.
"We weighed the chains," said Frank McDowell, director of county code enforcement. "They weighed 45 pounds. They were the biggest chains I've ever seen holding a dog."
Police also found equipment used to train the Pit Bulls for dog fighting. Eight people were arrested on a variety of weapons and drug charges during the bust.
McDowell said illegal dog fighting does exist in the county, but he doesn't know where and how often it occurs.
"Locating it is the problem," said McDowell, whose department oversees the county's animal services division.
McDowell said dog pits can be nothing more than four pieces of plywood with interlocking ends, making the entire structure portable enough to be transported by a pick up truck.
The portable pits can then be assembled quickly in an open field where the owners either gamble on the dogs or have them compete for bragging rights, McDowell said.
"A lot of times, these fights are to the death," McDowell said. "It's disgusting."
Owners like LaCalle emphasize the breed's full name: American Pit Bull Terrier. Terriers are fiercely loyal to their owners, intelligent and high energy, LaCalle said.
Think of any Terrier, LaCalle said. Boston Terriers. Yorkshire Terriers. Large or small, Terriers are stubborn and high maintenance.
"You just can't leave them alone in your yard," LaCalle said. "If you don't have time for a kid, you don't have time for a Pit Bull."
Ferocious owners usually raise fearsome Pit Bulls, said Jim Varn, the former director of the county's animal services.
"It's a matter of bad owners and bad breeding," Varn said. "Sadly, the Pit Bull is highly misused today. It's all in the way the dog is raised and managed."
Throughout her life, other dog owners would give LaCalle and her Pit Bulls disproving looks. It's like racial profiling, but with dogs, LaCalle said.
"If it's any other dog running around loose or protecting its owner, people will say the dog's sensitive or loyal," LaCalle said. "If it's a Pit Bull, people will say it's attacking them."
All large dogs, especially Pit Bulls, must have owners who understand the animals have to be trained and socialized "or they could do a lot of damage," LaCalle said.
That's her main concern with Nalla. Her new Pit Bull is scheduled for obedience training soon and LaCalle works Nalla out at least an hour every day to sit, lay down and fetch.
The key is to enforce commands, not with cruelty, but with strictness and firmness, Varn said.
LaCalle wishes that Pit Bulls didn't have such a bad rap. With the proper owner and proper training -- and a sweeping change in popular perception -- Pit Bulls can easily become the most loyal of family pets.
LaCalle believes Nalla was named after the lioness in Disney's "The Lion King." If that's true, then her former owners probably expected her to rack up victories.
But Nalla was never a warrior. She was destined for the life she has now, the one at the house in Brooksville with the large yard dotted with patches of sun.
"She healthy now," LaCalle said as she stroked Nalla's cream-colored fur. "She just has scars on the inside."

Reporter Ray Reyes can be contacted at (352) 544-5283.

 

How sad, I'm so glad that dog healed and has a good home. Thanks for depressing me, LOL...

 

yea good thing the dog healed...