Your First Impression

Alright, so we all have our own very different impressions of pitbulls after our first encounter. Were they the same feelings you had before you had actaully met a pitbull? Did the bad publicity and negative press that pitbulls receive live up to its hype? I only ask this because I've encountered many different people lately and there perception of pitbulls in most cases are always negative until they see how gentle my pitbull really is. Let me paint a little picture for you.

My best friend and I both have one and a half year old pitbulls, one male and one female. Were always taking them on walks throughout the neighborhood and this day wasn't any different. We were on our way back to the house when we saw one of the neighbors dogs outside unleashed so we went out of our way to stay clear of it but it found it's way over to us. Neither of our pitbulls did a thing but sniff and the dogs owner came over in a frantic. She was yelling get yur dog away from my dog(by the way, it was a chiuahua) to us as though our dogs were gonna attack it. First off, her dog was off a leash, and second there was nothing to worry about. Why because they are pitbulls would you suggest my dog is anymore harmful than yours?

I know pitbulls have a bad reputation but every bad dog comes from a bad owner or breeder. All those bad traits are taught, just like any other dog. Its honestly very fullfilling when people that have that bad perception meet my dog and praise him for his good manners. They all at least deserve the chance to prove themslves before they all get cast aside and banned in a lot of jurisdictions.

Im rambling a bit but this was something that really got me thinking. Please let me hear your opinion. Does all the negative publicity about the pitbull breed as a whole sway how you think about pitbulls? And did your first encounter change how you felt?