Hello,

My husband and our two young children have two pitbulls, and we are learning they are not an accepted breed where we have relocated to here, at all. (We recently relocated to New Mexico from Illinois, when my parents retired to NM and my mother developed health issues.)

My own family is prejudice against them. We adopted our second pitbull from a group here, and he is very young, going through his puppy chewing phase. The other day I was on the phone with my sister and I said ouch because I got nibbled on. She instantly replied, "well he is a pitbull what do you expect"....I could only reply with a laugh and "No, he's a puppy. That's what I expect." The comments about Pitbulls have yet to let up, despite my family seeing how wondering our dogs are with our two and a half year old and our five month old children.

My parents and my sister (who lives with them) have a 7 year old English Bulldog. She's food aggressive towards other animals, extremely dog aggressive, to the point where she takes off out of the front yard after people walking their dogs. And they still do not think to leash her in the front yard or contain her to the back yard. She is very disobedient. Still poops and pees all over the house, and on peoples things when she is jealous. Recently she has started going after my two and half year old daughter if she walks near her bowl of food, or runs around playing and goes past her. My husband and I are sick of it, and have decided we won't be bringing our children over there anymore, because despite all this negative behavior, they haven't offered to put her away when we come.

I was wondering if any of you had any tips for how my husband and I can address their attitude towards our pets and their dogs behavior. It's becoming a very big annoyance and a problem.