Bad Pittie Book

A few weeks ago, Josh and I were at Petco for the pet adoptions. He decided to pick up a book on APBT’s. “A New Owner’s Guide to American Pit Bull Terriers”. It had a cute little bully on the front cover. On our way home from the adoptions, I started to read this book. Well, let me tell you, I was quite surprised. To say the least.

Some of the quotes from the book include:

“Since dogs are fought at nearly identical weights, the bigger the dog you have at the weights, the better your chances. Hence, stocky dogs with long bodies, heavy shoulders and thick legs usually lose to taller, rangier opponents.”

“Too big a head simply carries more weight and increases of having to fight a bigger dog. Too small a head is easily punished by a nose fighter and is especially easy for an ear fighter to shake”

“In his winning form he is a fighting machine-a thing of beauty”

“Every APBT owner should own and know how to use a breaking stick. This is the fastest way of getting an APBT to let go of something, like another APBT!”

Now, this made me sick to my stomach. We were amazed that Petco would stock and/or sell a book that promoted the APBT as a “fighting machine”.

We were just going to return the book. We forgot to take it with us to the last pet adoptions. We talked to a couple employees at Petco and one woman took it very seriously. She said she would contact their corporate office. She asked another employee if she could take it off the shelf, the employee said, no.

So, Josh decided to write corporate himself. He told them how we had recently rescued an APBT and purchased a book from their store that would help us learn more about the breed. He then told them we were disgusted by it, among other things and we wanted it pulled from their shelves.

A few days later, he received a response from Petco:

“Thank you for contacting PETCO Customer Relations and notifying us of your concern. Please be assured that we have taken your email extremely seriously and one of my managers is working on this as I am writing to you.

I wanted you to know that the issue is being addressed and she will be in contact with you as soon as she has a response from our Merchandise Buyer.

Please know that we care about our customers and what they think of us. By letting us know when we fall short of your expectations, we have the opportunity to address your concerns and to be better prepared to meet your expectations in the future. If we can be any further assistance, please feel free to reply to this email or call PETCO Customer Relations directly at 1-888-824-7257. Thank you again for contacting PETCO.”

I thought that would be it. Well, yesterday Josh received an email from T.F.H. Publications. I guess Petco forwarded our email to the publisher of the book.

Here is T.F.H.’s response:

“Your e-mail expressing concern about "A New Owner's Guide to American Pit Bull Terriers" was forwarded to us by Petco. This book is one of our older titles and is being discontinued. Please be assured that TFH Publications, Inc. neither supports nor condones dogfighting.

TFH Publications, Inc. has revamped our publishing over the past couple of years, and we are very proud of our collaboration with Animal Planet, as well as our new Terra Nova series of dog breed books. If you reply with your shipping address, I would be happy to send you a sample of each so you can see our new direction - I know you will be pleasantly surprised.

As someone active in Pit Bull rescue, we would be very interested in your feedback after you have had a chance to review these new titles. The confidence of the consumers who purchase our products is of paramount importance to us.”

Soooo, at least the book is being discontinued. But Josh said that Petco already carries the new “Terra Nova series of dog breed books”. Now I’m afraid that if we do return the book, they will just put it back on the shelf. I thought about keeping the book for kindling and when we go back to Petco, make sure there are no more on the shelf. If so, I thought about buying it/them so no one else will. Hopefully they will just take them off. If not, I guess we will be contacting them again.

Viva el Pittie!!!!