We adopted a 1 YO pit about a month ago, and she is absolutely not a morning girl. If the sun ain't up, the only thing this girl wants to do is snuggle in bed with my wife. We've come up with a routine that works to get her to go out in the early morning, but it takes a lot of coaxing. Like a kid that doesn't want to get up to go to school.
Just wanted say thanks for saving a pit and there's not enough dobies in the funny pet videos. They're hilarious. Pits do well in the videos often because of the things they're frightened of, like the family cat. I saw a cat guarding the stairs about halfway up, the owner calling for the pit to come upstairs, and the pit shaking in fear because of the cat. Finally, he slowly creeps backwards up the stairs with his head turned away, like maybe he thinks that makes him invisible to the cat. The cat swats him in the face and the pit flies down the stairs crying like he's been mortally wound
That's funny. When we brought her home, within 10 seconds one of our cats swatted her in the face.
I hate to admit, but I was pretty hesitant about adopting a pit. Hypocritical of me, as our previous dog was also a breed that has faced some negative perception. But we agreed to meet her because the Humane Society said she was good with adults, kids, dogs, and cats. Meeting her wasn't some magical meeting. She is really timid around new people. Not good for getting a dog adopted. Not an aggressive timid, just very shy. First meeting, after a few minutes, she would take treats from us, but that was about it. Humane society people and her foster family swore was an absolute sweetheart that just took a little bit to open up. Also said she's good in the house, doesn't bark much or tear stuff up. Took a bit of a leap of faith based on what they were telling us. Even just getting her home was tricky. Aside from being scared of new people, she is absolutely petrified of cars. After all the paperwork and everything, we're sitting in the parking lot with her and a Humane Society worker, she's absolutely NOT getting in the car. I did gain a little confidence when the Humane Society worker said, "look, do you mind if I just pick her up and put her in your car?" For her to confidently pick up this terrified pitbull and put her in a place she didn't want to go showed how sure she was that she didn't get aggressive when scared.
We thought if we give her chance maybe she's just a great dog. And so far that's turned out to be the case. She's a really awesome sweet girl. In the first 2 weeks with us, she met about 20 different people in our home, including 2 kids under 2. With everybody, she runs away at first. But after about 5 minutes and some treats, she's cool.
Still working on the car thing. Still terrified. Working on it, but still terrified. We had a vet appointment after about a week. She's not getting in the car herself, but she'll let you pick her up and put her in. She did much better at the vet than I thought she would. Apparently, when there are other dogs around, she's so excited that she doesn't even notice all the new scary humans. At the vet, she's good with all the poking and prodding, checking of teeth, etc. Got a little scared, but as has been her norm, when she's scared, she backs away but never gets aggressive.
Anyway, she seems to be an awesome dog for all those things, and many more. Super sweet cuddle bug. She has the instinct that all the great dogs have. She understands that we're all in this together. When you ask her to do something, or not do something, she wants to do right. She understands that these humans love me and will take care of me, so there's an endless amount of treats and belly rubs, and it makes sense to do what they ask.
As an aside, our homeowner's insurance company did drop us when they found out her breed. They found out because I told them, even though the agent clearly didn't want me to. After all the pre-judging I did with her myself, I wasn't going to lie to to our insurance company. She is who she is, and if an insurance company isn't okay with that, then we can't do business. Turns out they weren't. One of my favorite customers is a State Farm agent. State Farm doesn't care about a dog's breed, only what they do. I switched to them expecting to pay more, but I actually ended up saving $500 a year between the home and auto.