It sounds as tho’ Rescue 2 had a lucky escape from parvo. I had a miniature Schnauzer (don’t ASK!) that survived a parvo infection as a puppy. Vet said the dog would never be right, but she turned out to be OK. From what every vet since then has said, apparently that was some sorta miracle.

1. Rescue 1 was abandoned by owners when she chewed on an electrical cord as a puppy and was mostly dead when brought in for treatment. They didn’t even want to try to treat her, but as you know, mostly dead is not all the way dead. She was treated and survived to become the lovingest dog of a 5 dog pack. Loves to snuggle, to go on car rides, is a very quiet and charming girl who best loves getting romped on in the snow by other dogs. She even learned to lay quietly underneath a blanket while being driven through states where pits are banned. No peeking!

2. Rescue 2 was an abandoned parvo case. Again, once revived, she lived happily in a home with house-roaming ferrets, cats and other dogs. She even perfected a mid-leap body twist so as to avoid jumping into the prize garden when scolded during her nightly yard runs. Helps the ferret roll potatos around the room. For fun.

3. At ten months old, Rescue 3 learned that he has to wait until his paws are wiped clean on muddy days before he’s allowed inside. He figured out that the older dog was boss, sans fighting, and concedes food bowl, bed and blanket as “requested.” (really, just a nudging is all that’s necessary). He likes to army crawl down the hallway to greet you, plays dead when caught sneaking into the house without permission and actually falls asleep (complete with snoring) while playing dead. Comes to work sometimes, and hangs out during staff meetings. Occasionally gets needy and crawls (90+ lbs, btw) into a staffer’s lap. To snuggle.

My fingers and toes are crossed that your stray is a regular kid because chances are likely that he or she would then be one of the above personalities.

It drove me beyond mad to deal with anybody trying to breed their dogs for fighting and thought we were too stupid to know better, but we couldn’t turn away injured or ill animals.

Even worse, I hate that any such potentially loving animals are tortured into such dangerous, ravening creatures, and that *all* of them suffer from the reputation.

It’s infuriating even to think about the brutes out there who torment animals for the fun of making them vicious. And the business of killing dogs that lose a fight or back down — as it develops, more because of the owner’s ego bruising than out of any understanding of natural selection — means that the pit bulls you’re likely to find at the pound have a larger chance of being bred for aggression.

Having owned and trained many German shepherds, I can attest that stupid breeding practices intended to produce “guard dogs” have pretty much wrecked the breed in the United States. Despite higher breed standards in Germany, the truth is that German-bred animals aren’t a lot better. At least Anna, who was German, did not have her hips fall apart at the age of one or go berserk at the age of three, pretty typical experiences for US-bred dogs.

Too bad you can’t persuade a coyote to take up residence around the house. O’course, if you could, in a few generations humans would do the job on that breed, too.