mobanmarketHONAKER, VA — Dallas was what is known as a “throw away” stray, a 3-year-old pit bull so conditioned to kill that animal welfare authorities ordered his execution after he was seized from a huge Canadian dog-fighting ring three years ago. Now, as one of the first pit bulls ever rescued from a fighting ring to train as a police K-9 officer, Dallas will be sniffing out drugs for police in the southwest Virginia town of Honaker.
Dallas was among 21 dogs seized in the 2015 raid on a dog-fighting ring in Ontario that got a death sentence based on a behavioral assessment that deemed them dangerous. The Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said at the time the dogs “are not pets” and “their focus is to kill.”
That didn’t make sense to Rob Scheinberg, who runs the Dog Tales rescue and sanctuary in Ontario. He ultimately prevailed in a long court battle and won custody of 18 of the dogs, including Dallas.
“I thought, ‘There is no way there are not a few good dogs,’ ” Scheinberg told The Washington Post.
Dallas and nine other dogs found a home in Florida with Pit Sisters, where the now canine cadet showed himself to be an extraordinary ball handler.
“We knew that his combination of ball drive and his wanting of human praise was the perfect combination to be a police dog,” Jen Deane, Pit Sisters founder and president, told The Post.
Dallas’ chance to make something of his life came from the Throw Away Dogs Project, a Philadelphia area nonprofit that trains stray dogs to lead useful lives and serve their communities. Trainer Bruce Myers, who traveled to Florida to put Dallas through an intensive six-week training program, told The Post the dog will “save many lives.”
“If he helps take one brick of heroin off the street, that can save 1,000 people,” Myers said. “And he will be incredibly proficient by the time he leaves here.”
There’s a special irony in Dallas almost being euthanized because of the law and now training to enforce it, his handlers told television station WCNC.
When Dallas arrives in Honaker next month, he will fill a role police Chief Brandon Cassell has long wanted to fill. With only 1,500 residents, Honaker couldn’t afford the $10,000-plus needed to get a highly trained narcotics dog, so Cassell turned to the Throw Away Dogs Project.
The organization was founded in 2014 by Carol Skaziak, who said her work at a luxury pet clinic left her broken-hearted at the number of dogs abandoned by their owners, and canine police dog handler Jason Walters, whose dog Winchester was only a day away from being euthanized before he rescued him. They teamed with trainer Myers three years later.
Dallas isn’t the first pit bull to get a badge.
Wildflower, a stray that came to the organization last year after she was picked up from a South Carolina street, was the first pit bull trained as a K-9 drug detection officer by Throw Away Dogs. Wildflower now is a member of the Wetumka, Oklahoma, Police Department.
“She has amazing drive,” Wetumka police Chief Joe Chitwood told television station KOKH when Wildflower joined the department this summer. “I mean, she’s tons of energy. And that’s what we look for.”
Chitwood worried Wildflower’s lineage would be off-putting to residents of Wetumka, but that hasn’t been the case.
“A lot of folks just don’t take to pit bulls as well, or, they have preconceived notions about the breed,” Chitwood told the television station, but added residents have warmed to her. “She’s ours now. She’s here to serve our community and be an ambassador to the pit bulls here in this state.”
In a statement three years ago, the group said Dallas and the other pit bulls were ordered killed “simply because of what they are labeled as.”
Pit bulls are powerfully strong and are descendants of the original English bull- baiting dogs that would bite and hold bulls, bears and other large animals around the face and head. When the practice was outlawed in the 1800s, dog owners began fighting them against each other, breeding their lower bull-baiting dogs with smaller, quicker terriers to produce a more agile and athletic dog, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
But, the ASPCA emphasizes, while some pit bulls are bred for their fighting ability and may be more likely than other breeds to fight with dogs, “it doesn’t mean they can’t be around other dogs or that they’re unpredictably aggressive.”
You can watch Dallas below, via WCNC’s YouTube channel.
Image and video courtesy of WCNC television station’s YouTube channel