Hi...I'm glad that Dexter is on the road to recovery and the surgery went well. I really really hope he continues on his path to have a good quality of life, both physically and mentally.

Now, I am going to stick my neck out here and give my opinion on this and a suggestion. And some may or may not like what I have to say or my view may not be popular but I have been thinking a lot about Dexter's story and his journey. It bothered me that he was attacked by another dog so viciously because I can't even imagine how terrified he must have been. 

Ok, so here goes. Fact is, Dexter was attacked by a pit bull. Pit Bulls are known to be aggressive. I believe they must be handled by a person who has a lot of time to spend properly training them and managing their aggressive tendencies because they are by nature strongly dominant dogs. With the proper training as I mentioned, it doesn't have to be that way, nor do they need become aggressive to the point of attacking another dog they may or may not live with. That being said, Dexter, a puppy, should not have been left a lone with an adult pit bull, let alone any other adult dog, who had already established his position in the household. That was handler error. 

Now that I have aired that....I kind of am wondering why they would delete your post in facebook just for mentioning the words "pit bull". Might it have been because your story elicited a lot negative responses, maybe cursing, some maybe downright aggressive from other people who were upset that Dexter got attacked? Would you feel comfortable posting what you wrote here so we could look at it? 

Your news story is a good idea, but in writing it, you cannot skirt around the fact that his injuries were caused by a pit bull. You said it was not the point, but actually it is. People are going to want to know what happened and what their money is going towards. BUT, you can write the story in a way that shows a tragic story of what can happen with animals aren't properly introduced and that you learned (in a hard way) from the mistake. When you can take your story and use it as a tool to help others and help prevent dog bites (whether by a pit bull or not), I think they would be more inclined to want to give you assistance. If they just see: "Oh my puppy was attacked by my pit bill and now I need help to fix him," they may wonder why you let that  happen in the first place....just saying, people do have a tendency to judge. I am good at writing and can give you a hand if you would really like to get this into the news.  Maybe instead of the headline reading "Puppy attacked by pit bull in owners yard" it could read "Local pet owner emphasizes importance of properly introducing new pets to the household". That way the emphasis isn't on the pit bull, but rather on what was learned from the accident. 

Drops in two cents...*plink *plink*

Cadence's Mom

Oh my gosh!  He does look good!  What a trooper!

I, too want to speak up in Dexter's mom defense.  I had it happen also and my dogs who were properly introduced.  And it happened with a lab mix, not a pit bull to Comet who was way smaller.  I had a chow with me at the time who, by the way helped break up the fight.  Chows have no better of a rep than pits and my chow didn't attack the underdog, she grabbed the big dog. 

I was lucky as Comet was only somewhat superficially mauled in the chest area.  Dexter's mom wasn't.  My guilt of letting it happen still lives with me. I can still see it happening in slow motion.  It manifested into a terrible protective behavior for Comet the rest of her life. I have horrible fears of dog fights now. It took me years to talk about what happened that day. 

So, I know it can happen and I hope you, Dexter's mom will be a better person than I was on handling the guilt.

Dexters mum - you definately done everything possible to prevent this from happening in the first place but sometime things still occur from no fault of anyone. The main thing is that Dexter is getting better. What a crap thing to have to go through and the miss placed guilt is very hard to deal with (I still feel an incredible amount of guilt and nightmares about the loss of one of our dogs) well done for putting that aside and concentracting on whats important and not worrying about what cant be changed. Remember that you have done the very best for Dexter and that waggy tail of his. We are all hoping for the best and if I could I would definately be making a donation towards his care but I just cant 🙁 and im sorry. Good luck with the fundraising I hope it all works out.

Dexter keep up the awesome attitude buddy, you are amazing!!!

Sarah