Pro-Pibble? Grow a Thick Skin.

**"Pibble", by the way, is my favorite term for my favorite, much-maligned breed--the American Pit Bull Terrier.  (I didn't invent it.  Google "Pibble Power", if you have interest.)

Walk down any street with a charming, happy well-behaved Labrador, and watch the faces light up.  Even people who are otherwise stoic or even non-responsive to you, the human, will respond to a Labrador.

Same person, same clothes, same street, identical charming, happy well-behaved behavior -- but in a pibble suit?  You are glared at, intentionally avoided, and doors will literally slam in your face.  It's tough to face the reception handlers of these dogs receive. 

Walking next to a pibble gives you something no other accessory does as effective-- rejection.  You are a menace to society.  You are too ignorant and cock-eyed optimistic to realize the truth, that this is a killing machine.  You'll probably learn the hard way.

When I walk with a dog in a pibble suit, I feel a great weight.  As a white woman, I haven't faced what people wearing other genetic or socio-economic "suits" must deal with on a regular basis.  The frustration and deliberate rejection I feel only when walking next to the wrong-shaped dog is overwhelming.  I can't imagine what it's like to have the wrong color skin, to have the wrong speech patterns, to have the wrong body language, the wrong social status indicators. 

Walking next to the target of that rejection is bad enough.  It makes me ANGRY to know that there are people who have to process BEING the direct target of the rejection.  It makes me ADMIRE those who, like the dogs I prefer, stoically walk with dignity, with amicability, letting the rejection do what it should -- reflect poorly on those who express it, and rolling off their backs like water off a duck.  Or off a Labrador, as the metaphor may demand.