If you go back a few years, you wouldn't find me typing a blog post for a pit bull rescue.  I was hardly a dog person.  I was certainly NOT a pit bull person.  I was pretty sure that pit bulls were dangerous dogs, ready to snap at any moment and not safe to have around.  I thought that we'd be better off wiping them off the planet.  Safer to stick with regular dogs like golden retrievers (I was so deluded).

When we started having trouble with our dog, a scrappy 3 year old Boston Terrier, we were in way over our head.  We needed to fix the problem because giving him up was not an possibility but he needed to live in harmony with my 3 year old son.  We enlisted the help of a dog trainer.  We googled about dog problems.  Somewhere in there, we came across some small clips of the Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan.  We went out and got our hands on every Dog Whisperer episode and burned through them. 

One thing totally caught my eye.  Cesar's right hand "man" was a big, tough looking, red pit bull named Daddy.  He was muscular and strong, with cropped ears and big teeth.  Daddy was the first pit bull that I'd really seen outside of the media hoopla.  But this guy wasn't a snarling, mean, human killer.  He was a big, loveable softy who would rather roll over for tummy rubs than bother attacking anything or anyone.  He was the biggest suck with the sweetest personality.  He was a pit bull, and I was in major love.

Because of him, I started to break down the ideas that I had surrounding pit bulls and what they were like.  I started to notice other pit bulls in Cesar's pack as calm, wonderful dogs as well.  It just snowballed until one beautiful October day when we drove to pick up Daisy, our pit bull cross, from the SPCA.  She instantly became a valuable, loved member of our family. 

Of course, since then we've adopted a red pit bull pup, started a pit bull website, fostered pit bulls and finally become board members for this pit bull rescue.  If you'd talked to me all of those years ago, you'd never have guessed that I'd be sitting here now, typing out this blog post with 3 pit bulls at my feet. 

Today I found out that yesterday, at the ripe old age of 16, Daddy passed away with Cesar and his family at his side.  For me, and for millions of people out there who love Daddy like I do, this loss is as real as if it were my own dog.  Daddy brought me happiness and opened up possibilities that led me here, doing the one thing that I feel I was meant to do. 

You are missed by all who knew you, big guy.  Our deepest condolences go out to the Millan family.  Thank you for sharing him with the world. 

Run free, Daddy.