Hello everyone. I am a refugee from another forum where Off Topic overtook the focus there. I just know everyone will recognize me as I post and get an avatar of my darling 'pup' to show I'm a staff lover too. We need not quarrel over 'the' name, simply love the wonderful dogs that make up this 'breed'.
Hi to all those I already know and HELLO to those who I will be priviledged to get to know!
Amended later on -
So it seems the mods desire a more detailed bio for everyone here to know my 'history' with this breed. Get comfortable, this will take time
My parents were Depression (circa 1930's) kids, mom's dad brought home every stray dog even though the family was eating beans. But both of my parents must have fallen for Petey in the original Our Gang flicks as they got our first Am Staff when I was a toddler. Ginger did not remain with our family because it turned out that she prefered men only and while she tolerated my mom, Ginger wasn't to be trusted around me. They re-homed Ginger with a single man who loved her all her life. We actually got to see Ginger several years afterwards and have old 8mm home movies of her ZOOMING around.
By 1960, the breeder who we got Ginger from was finding herself 'over-stocked' with dogs. She offered her retiring show champion to my parents so Smudge came to our house. He immediately moved into our house and hearts. Smudge was a Gentleman, quiet, not pushy, and happy to be in a 'pack'. He is what I think of when I think of this breed. Here's his picture and our family in the 1960's
I married in 1970 and not long after getting our first house, the person who took over the breeder's kennels offered my parents a young dog that was left over from a litter. Smudge had died from jaw cancer not long before that and my parents were not ready for another dog so me and hubby were asked if we wanted a dog. Buck became our first 'boy'! He was our pride and joy, full of life, would play ball until he ran his pads off if we didn't stop him and got to move with us onto hubby dream house on a golf course. Each night hubby would take a tennis ball and 9 iron to exercise Buck on the fairway out back. Buck got to expand his running when we bought 40 acres with plenty of ground squirrels and jack rabbits to chase. Buck lived with us for 13 wonderful years.
Here's his picture (taken waiting for hubby to throw that ball!) -
Loosing Buck was a heartbreaker but a few months later we knew we could not be dogless. An ad in the paper caught our eye and we contacted the breeder (BYB I'm sure now) for a dog to a GOOD home. Wyatt entered our lives. We had moved from the golf course onto the 40 acres so Wyatt went from a totally fenced yard to open spaces. Quiet Wyatt was initially a shy boy although he was a BIG boy too. He became known as our lovable slob and could 'hooch' drool with the best of them! He was papered but anyone could see by his heavy chest and body, bulldog genes were at play here. Wyatt graced our lives for 13 years too, but his strong body finally gave out to kidney failure. Here's Wyatt as a young and older dog too -
It would be almost 8 years before we sought another dog. We relocated from the 40 acres to 60 acres of 'privacy'. After the house was built and we settled in, neighbor trying dog rescue got me looking on Petfinder. Strak's picture kept us returning to it out of all the MANY dogs we saw. He has now been with us over a year and we wonder why we waited so long. Guess it was so he could be with us. I need to take a more recent picture as we are sure he has 'buffed' up a bit from running UP and down our hills, but here's a few pics of him -
So there's the saga of this breed in my life. American Staffordshire Terriers have always been the family dog for me, and now for hubby too. Will expound more on their qualites and reasons for LOVING them other places on this forum
Last edited by JainDaugh on January 12th, 2006, 1:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.