Friday, June 17, 2011

The White Goddess

Today, I had the unique opportunity to meet yet another pit bull hater. She applied to adopt Mabel, one of the Animals First dogs, not a pit bull, but a shar pei. I mentioned that Mabel had been adopted, but we had several other wonderful dogs.

When she found out they were pit mixes, didn't matter that basset, ridgeback and cattle dog made up the rest. No pits, she said.

Well, I've matured...a little bit. But, today was a long day and I've been fighting the battle all day trying to save two dogs who've been butchered and were noosed to a chain link fence in the Houston heat. She came back at me a couple of times and finally told me she was going to report me to the 'site'. I answered back, 'please do!' That way you can get rid of all the people like me, then all the pit bulls can die and nice people will be safe again.

I'm so sick of the whole anti pit thing. Bottom line, it's the media. Even the Examiner which I'm lucky enough to write the American Pit Bull articles for has its share of pit haters.

Today, I ran across an article about rehabbed pit bulls killing children. There has not been one case of a former fighting dog killing a child. Period. I would have been the first to hear about it.

The White Goddess is a piece by Robert Graves. The book length essay draws on links between poetry, mythology and the worship of the Goddess. It's become a source of inspiration for other writers, poets, students to draw upon the body of his work. Rather than 'stealing', these writers more or less contributed to a process which I call the White Goddess.

It's my understanding that other writers such as Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes built their work in a sort of tribute. It was as if there was the White Goddess and the work of each poet, each writer adds to the greater work as if laying paint on a great tree in the forest.

That is what I'm doing with my pit bull articles. I cannot undo the horror committed against these dogs through the media. That would be quite impossible. What I can do is write an article or two each day and in my own method, create a new reality or restoration of these dogs to their deserved place on this earth.

For every bad and badly written article, such as the one about rehabbed dogs killing children, I can write about a wronged dog who ended up in a shelter. I can write about Lady, the beautiful red nose/cattle dog  boxer mix whose owner called animal control to pick up Lady and the two strays playing under her house. Lady was killed yesterday.

For every article I read about how horrible pit bulls are, oftentimes capitalized or written as one word, I can write a good article. Bottom line, there are hundreds of thousands of good stories to counter the bad ones. I will never run out of subject matter.

I'm not saying my writing is in the same league as Plath or Graves, but I am diligent. Ain't no accident I rescue pit bulls.

Someday, the odds will win out. If I keep writing my little articles, sooner or later others will become attracted and the tides might even turn. That is my thought and my hope, my White Goddess.






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