Greetings, writers—
Our neighbors found a stray pit bull last night. He was young and huge and nothing but muscle. You should’ve seen the size of his skull, his jaws—he could’ve ripped my entire face off if he’d wanted to, as easily as I’d bite off a hangnail. He was the strongest thing besides a horse I’d ever been close to, and when he jumped up on me, he nearly knocked me flat.
We couldn’t just let him go, obviously, but no one on our block could take him in—two houses had cats, and one had valuable show dogs who couldn’t be around a stray; one couple wasn’t strong enough control the dog, and another was understood to be overwhelmed already by their children. The neighbor with the show dogs said that while there was “no evidence this dog is a cat killer,” it was also very clear that I “couldn’t handle him,” which was accurate and mildly offensive at the same time. So for a long while, we all stood around in the street, petting him and telling him that he was a good boy and not knowing what to do.1
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