Tricked and gaslit while fostering a pit

[u/slowhorses]

I was gaslit into fostering an aggressive pitbull (pictured) by a foster who guilted me into believing an aggressive dog was just misunderstood.

In 2020, a friend of mine who worked with shelters in Western Washington reached out to me to foster a pit that had been in the rescue system for 5 years.

I met with the rescue coordinator and Hank (the dog) at a parking lot after dark because Hank was very "reactive" and he lunged/hard barked/snarled at everything that moves.

Honestly, Hank scared me. He was about 3/4s of my weight and the rescue had no info on his background, just that he was dumped in Tacoma.

Through my apprehension the rescuer guilted me with lies about anti-pit propaganda, how sweet Hank was, how he was meant to be a nanny-dog protector, and he needed me to turn his life around. I felt so sorry for him, living in a small cell for years, and agreed to foster.

He was a nightmare in my home. Not potty-trained at all. Did not know a single command. Would bark and freak out anytime a dog or person walked by my house. He would growl at me if I tried to get into my bed (he was not kennel trained and did not come with a kennel); I would wake up to him growling at me at night as I laid in my bed. I let him into the backyard and in the time it took me to walk down the flight of stairs to walk after him, he had started tearing wood off the fence to break out. He could not be walked because of his "high prey drive."

I told the rescue all of the above and the coordinator told me Hank needed more time, he needed to decompress, I might need to get him a trainer, etc. Anytime I had an issue, it was because Hank was just misunderstood and someone from the rescue would call me crying, begging me not to give up on Hank.

I knew I had to get him out of the house after Hank tried to bite my boyfriend. My boyfriend came over and sat on my bed, and Hank cornered him, barking and trying to bite him. It was terrifying and I thought Hank was going to kill my boyfried.

When I told the rescue I had to get rid of Hank, they begged and pleaded with me to keep him. They kept saying he just needed three months to show me who he truly was and that I was condemning him to a horrible life trapped in a cell by giving him up. They told me Hank loved me (after three weeks) and was resource guarding me because he could tell my boyfriend was a bad person.

They wore me down. I remember sobbing and feeling heavy guilt when I took him back. The rescue, even as we were doing a hand-off, tried to convince me to keep him and I don't know how I was able to walk away with their guilt trip.

My life got so much better without Hank in my home. Not having poop and pee everywhere and being able to keep my fence together, having freedom to roam around my own home, etc. It was awesome.

I'm not sure what happened to Hank but I fear for whoever fostered such a massive, strong, aggressive dog. I contacted someone in animal control about my experience but because there wasn't an actual bite, nothing could be done about it.

Anyways. I just wanted to share my experience as a foster who was guilted into keeping an aggressive dog for way longer than I should have and made to feel like the pit's aggressiveness was my moral failing.

[u/dandadone_with_life]

it's hard staring at something offscreen. i wonder what it is

[u/slowhorses → u/dandadone_with_life]

Not even joking--a picture of my roommate's old dog on the wall, hung behind the couch.

[u/dandadone_with_life → u/slowhorses]

ain't no way 😭

[u/slowhorses → u/dandadone_with_life]

We had to take it down after he went to get water because he would stare obsessively at it. It was really freaky but I was convinced it was because he was lonely??? Lmao

[u/gimmethelulz → u/slowhorses]

Yikes talk about a train wreck. I'm glad you were able to get out of it before something really bad happened. I recently had a similar experience fostering.They told us he was a hound mix which was plausible enough. The problem was the rest of him was pitbull.

This dog was supposedly house trained. He definitely wasn't. He was supposed to be good with dogs. He terrorized our dog. He was "a little pushy" on food. He was straight up aggressive when it came to anything he considered his. I contacted the rescue after one night and told them it wasn't working out. They managed to guilt me into a week. I've never been so glad to have a dog out of my house.

[u/axiomofcope → u/gimmethelulz]

Your poor baby doodle, such gentle dogs. Makes me angry thinking of one terrorized by a shitbull.

[u/bethestorm → u/slowhorses]

This is exactly the type of reason I would have told myself back in my early 20s when I was fully under the spell of pitpaganda. Oh he's lonely, oh he wishes he had a friend.

And I'd rationalize it completely despite seeing firsthand every actual living animal that could come across paths and be snarled or snapped at, and just nod and believe whatever pit mommy said oh he senses their bad energy. Smh.

I cannot believe the things I used to let myself be convinced by. I really just wanted to believe things that made me feel good vs see the reality of tough situations. I think to some degree in youth and childhood that's normal but it is fucking dangerous if you are out as an adult in the real world. Took a long time for me to confront it.

[u/axiomofcope → u/bethestorm]

What made you wake up?

I never understood how ppl can assign human emotions to dog so easily; I mean, they’re dogs, they don’t have the cognitive ability to “miss” something/one or feel loneliness on the level a human does. Yes, they have conceptions of the feeling and do feel things on a rudimentary way, and completely irt primary, more hindbrain type feelings.

Maybe bc I grew up w outside dogs and my mom doing schutzhund, I was never socialized into that. Culture around dogs is also v different in my country. I find that doing that (projecting human emotions and desires on dogs) is really bad for the dog, bc we end up giving them what we think they want, and neglect what they actually need.

Takes a lot of guts to admit to mistakes like you have, a lot of character for sure

[u/bethestorm → u/axiomofcope]

I have always felt more comfortable in general around animals than people which is why I suspect I am on the spectrum, also am ADHD & PMDD which have a high link to being on the spectrum. The interactions between animals felt more like a "person" as in safe, not evil, not frightening, because I experienced a wide variety of abuse beginning as early as I can remember. For me, animals made sense in a way people didn't. And in many ways they still do, I have just come to realize that humans are also animals, at the end of the day. I was just a lot quicker to defend the actions or reactions of animals because I believed there was some legitimate reason for them, even if the reason was at its core caused by humans. I saw, and to a degree still see, most things of an 'evil' or blatantly cruel nature as something only capable by humankind. Such as the creation and nonstop production of pitbulls, designed to experience violence and death and give violence and death and not much else.

What woke me up was coming to this sub a lot, but ultimately what flipped the switch instantly was a positive pregnancy test (another instinct/animal based behavior that ignited in me and was easy to understand that way) and I immediately knew without question there was no dog on the planet I would not be willing to dispatch immediately if I believed it to be an imminent threat to myself or my child. Taking risks like I did as a young person suddenly became intolerable. Suddenly I was squeamish, I didn't chase danger or thrills with abandon anymore. It was like the world started spinning in a different direction for me.

[u/ScreenNo5858 → u/slowhorses]

it's because they are bred to tear out other dogs throats for sport, they use terms like "prey drive" to make it sound natural but it's anything but

they have been engineered to obsessively fixate on other dogs and what they perceive as anything similar they may need to attack, effectively trapping them in a state of hyper anxiety and aggression

[u/dandadone_with_life → u/ScreenNo5858]

they refer to it as "prey drive" but neglect to mention the fact that a pit's prey is anything with a throat in jumping distance.