Almost four years ago now my wonderful 100lb beauty was born. My adorable Sharpay-Lab is a giant lapdog who gives me all of the love in the world.
I met him in October three years ago just a few days before he was getting sent to the pound.
A couple purchased him not knowing that both breeds of dog that he was mixed with are large dogs. Being a large dog he required a decent amount of space and yard to roam and run in, but the couple only had a backyard that was 8ft by 8ft, and so they decided it was best for him to put him in the pound. Before that could happen my dad overheard him talking about it and decided that since our dog had passed away about a year before that we could take him. (Even though my dad isn't an animal person he likes to have an outside guard dog because we live in the middle of nowhere and he can't argue since he was already fixed with shots and we were getting him for free)
So that day my dad stopped by his house after work and picked up our new (at the time) 80lb friend Scrappy.
Honestly, that day was probably one of the best days I had had in a significant amount of time. Seeing that creature run in an acre of fenced land for the first time gave me so much joy it hurt. My mom is allergic to dogs so he doesn't come in very often, just when the weather is bad or we want him to come visit.
Outside he has an insulated doghouse that is almost the size of my dorm room at college, with a heated bed that only turns on when he lays on it. So you can imagine that Michigan winters don't get the best of my best friend.
The only negative thing that my dog will do is not like you.
Scrappy is the definition of a guard dog. If anyone that isn't related to me shows up my dog can and will be very suspicious of you, and if you aren't around one of my family members or if we aren't home he WILL attack you.
Especially if you're a man. For whatever reason, if you're a man he is twice as likely to attack you. As long as a member of my family is around he'll just bark at you and keep a close eye on you, but if a person shows up to my house and he doesn't know them he will bark and growl and probably scare the absolute shit out of you.
For whatever reason people think that because of this I need to put my dog down because he is too aggressive
We do not take my dog to public places
We have signs at every entrance of our back yard saying "BEWARE OF DOG" and "GUARD DOG ON DUTY"
We only let him around others if family is around
Scrappy has never harmed ONE person. EVER.
Yet, many people still think that my dog is evil. I've come to this conclusion: My dog is not evil, people who want me to kill my dog are evil.
I've read on the internet before of too many times that people have gotten bit by dogs and been forced to put their pets down. I personally feel that this needs to be more regulated because in MOST cases the dog was scared, or egged on. IF PEOPLE GET SCARED THEY ARE PROTECTED BY LAW AS SELF-DEFENSE BUT IF DOGS ARE SCARED THEY GET KILLED.
Although I understand that there are some cases in which the dog is not scared I would argue that almost HALF of these cases are SCARED DOGS.
I love my dog, and I want more laws to protect him and other dogs like him.
If I had more time I'd go on to talk about Pitbulls. Stay tuned for that article!