When I got home tonight, our next door neighbor was outside and he was introducing himself to me, (he just moved back from San Antonio, and his ex wife and kids had been living in the house, but now he's there and the kids--who are both in college, and we sort of "know" just from being neighbors) and in small talk he asked if we had dogs...
He was hesitant to tell me (which I found quite hilarious) that they just got a "12 or 13 week old" pit bull girl. He didn't even know we had dogs (I have no idea how), but was just giving me a heads up because the fence we share is super crappy, just in case. I said, "OH! yeah! Thats what our three are!" and he seemed pretty happy about that. I explained that ours are never out unattended, so that's probably why he didn't know we had them. He said he was probably going to get a tie-down set up in the back yard for now since she is small and could squeeze through holes in the fence and whatnot. I took that as him meaning "when she is out to potty" and hope desperately he didn't mean like, as her daily-routine sort of thing. (They did have a chocolate lab who was outside a lot, but not all the time. When we got our dogs they started keeping her in more because she liked to bark while they were out.)
I am just so hoping they aren't idiots about her... He said they have gotten "A lot of interesting responses" from people...I just laughed and explained that's part of it, and people, especially here, just don't know the breed. (The city we live in is very "wealthy" and conservative, so pit bulls aren't all that common, and people often are afraid of them.) We chatted for a few minutes about the breed and whatnot. Since this was my first time meeting him I didn't go into my crazy dog lady shpeel, but I do want to be able to talk to them about responsible ownership and everything... he said it was great to hear we have that in common, and told me to come over and meet her any time, (which would be awkward but who can resist knowing a pit bull puppy is next door? not I) !!
So does anyone have any good advice for not coming off as judgmental or rude about it? Like I said, I haven't even met the dog yet so I may have nothing to worry about... I am hoping she is a rescue just because he said "12 or 13 weeks old" but, that's just me hoping for the best! He was telling me about some of the best dogs he has known have been pit bulls, and they had a border collie that was aggressive and blah blah, but I'm pretty sure it is their first time owning the breed, so I assume they don't know a lot of what it entails. I just want to be able to steer them in the right direction, but don't know how to do so without coming off as a know-it-all or overstepping my neighborly boundaries, since I don't know them that well.
And, I am pretty excited to have a pit bull puppy next door!