Rehoming Your Pitbull

Pitbull-friendly rental housing can be difficult to find. Don’t give up! You wouldn’t move into a new place that didn’t allow your children, would you? Expand your search to surrounding areas. Consider looking through real estate agents that handle rental listings as well as the classified ads. There are service agencies that help match tenants with rental housing. Spread the word, ask around, and share on social media. It can’t hurt to speak to the landlord and ask if ‘no pets’ really means no pets or if there are exceptions for well-mannered, well-groomed, well-cared-for pets. Offer to provide medical records to show your pet is spayed/neutered and current on vaccines. If you crate your dog when not home, tell them as this could provide an extra bit of assurance. Offer to let them meet the dog before deciding. My Pitbull is Family is also a great resource for finding pitbull-friendly housing.

Owning a pet is a 10+ year commitment. Most people, including our foster-families, have full-time jobs, kids, friends, and other responsibilities in their lives…but they make it work. Yes, dogs would love to spend every minute with their owners, but this is the reality. Your dog will be okay while you are at work or class for most of the day. It will make the time you get to spend with your dog that much more valuable. Is a new baby taking up your time? New babies are a lot of work. Many families have babies and dogs simultaneously. Never leave your dog alone, unsupervised with a child.

A new baby can be stressful and time-consuming. We get it. But, it is very possible to have a new baby and keep your dog – families do it all the time, including many of our fosters, adopters and volunteers. Unless you have serious concerns about your baby’s safety, you owe it to your dog to do whatever you can to make it work. You made a commitment to your dog, very much like you have or will with your new baby. Consider asking a friend or dog-walker to help give your dog exercise through the tough newborn months, or look into doggy daycare if your dog likes being social and active. Remember, the sleepless nights won’t last forever and it will get easier – your dog wants to be part of your family, baby included.

It happens. A dog’s behavior, personality, temperament, and tolerance level can change over time. It can be a stressful situation. Dog aggression is a more common than you think among bully breeds. It can also be selective. Your dog will not like every other dog it meets just like you and I will not necessarily like every person we meet. You should never leaving your dog alone, unsupervised with any other pets. In reality, the odds of finding a single-pet household for your animal-aggressive dog is slim. Please consider a crate-and-rotate routine. Come up with a system that works for your household. While one pet is out of the crate, enjoying family time, the other pet is confined to the crate. Rotate them around so each pet gets equal time. You can find useful information on crate and rotate through Pit Bull Rescue Central.

First, consider seeking the help of a professional – medical and behavioral. Sometimes there is an underlying medical cause for behavior problems, causing the dog to become easily irritable or intolerant. If a medical cause isn’t present, there are many trainers and behaviorists that can offer advice and assistance. Feel free to reach out us for advice and references. Let’s be honest – if you don’t want to deal with your dog’s behavioral issues, what makes you think that someone else wants to? Consider ways of helping your dog cope with his or her issues so you can both be happier.

Get rid of your boyfriend/girlfriend.
Problem solved.

Unfortunately, not all insurance companies will cover pitbulls, or other dogs they consider to be “aggressive breeds”. Luckily, there are many companies who do cover pitbulls as they would any other type of dog. Pit Bull Rescue Central offers information on pitbull-friendly insurance carriers to check out in your area.

If your dog bit someone, you cannot, in good conscience, just give it to someone else. This is especially true if you hid the bite history from a potential new home or rescue. Would you be able to live with yourself if your dog hurt another person? A child? Any respectable rescue group will not adopt out a dog with a bite history, and neither should you. If a rescue group agrees to take your dog, they would be caring for your dog for life, taking a spot in that rescue for many dogs during that time to be saved. In some cases, you can pay a behaviorist or trainer to work with your dog, but this can be very costly and is not guaranteed to improve the behavior. Dumping a dog with known aggression at animal control, especially a pitbull, is pretty much a guaranteed death sentence. As difficult as it is, sometimes the best thing you can do – after exhausting all other options from a trainer or behavior specialist – is to humanely euthanize a truly human-aggressive dog at your vet’s office, with you, instead of dying alone and scared at the pound.