What is in a name?

As I walk down the kennels at the shelter and see the looks in the dogs' eyes I wonder why people give up their pets. The next question is why you would tell us a particular breed when nothing is that obvious.

The term "mutt" or "heinz 57" would classify 75% of all shelter dogs. People don't use those terms anymore. According to the dictionary, a mutt is a mongrel dog and a heinz 57 would be a dog with 57 varieties all mixed in. When I see people who have labeled an obvious mutt a pit bull, I cringe.

I cringe because just the name will send people running in the other direction. They won't even look at an animal who has pit bull associated with it in any way. They do this because they have never heard anything good about the breed, have never, in most cases, seen a pit bull, and are terrified based on what someone else may have told them.

There are several different breeds of dogs who have short, stocky bodies and large heads. There are also several breeds of dogs who have large, stocky bodies and large heads. These are not all pit bulls, but are known collectively as bully breeds. These can include Am Staffs, Bull Terriers, Presa Canerios, American bulldogs, English bulldogs, French bulldogs, Dogue de Bordeaux, Mastiffs, bull mastiffs and the list goes on and on.

The picture I have attached is of a pit bulldog. As you can see, the photo looks nothing like most people picture and when dogs are turned in to a shelter with that particular label as their breed, many are served with a death warrant that is undeserved.

With doggie DNA available now, I wish a benefactor would fall out of the sky so we could test the dogs and label them properly.

As Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet: "What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet"

I could say the same about naming dog breeds.