Pit Bull Confidential is a short film produced by Linda Gunter. The film explores the side of adopting America’s dog through interviews with Washington Animal Rescue League CEO Dr. Gary Weitzman, Julie Paez of The Big Bad Woof, and pit bull adopters.

Click on the photo below to watch this short film…

Linda is self-described as a parent, partner, environmentalist, animal lover, and burgeoning short filmmaker. The video was intriguing, so I asked her for a brief Q&A.

Q&A with Linda Gunter

Naturally the first question, why did you decide to create this video? And why about pit bulls?
I noticed that the city/county shelters especially were full of pit bull mixes and pit bulls – I periodically drop in on shelters if I am in the area; I guess this is some form of masochism since then I want to take half of them home! But it’s also to inform myself more about shelter challenges. I also learned, in volunteering at my local shelter, that pits are generally really sweet-natured people dogs. So I looked on YouTube to see if there was a short video dispelling some of the many myths about pit bulls. While I found lots of mainly raw footage about people’s sweet pit bulls, I could not find an informational piece. So I decided to make the video. It’s my first video so it was also exciting to finally master the technology and accomplish a longstanding goal to make a short documentary. The main purpose was to try to encourage more people to consider adopting pit bulls when choosing a rescue dog and to answer some of the concerns they may have because of the adverse publicity.

How did you choose who to work with on the project?
I am a volunteer at the Washington Animal Rescue League – and two of our animals were adopted from there, a dog and a cat. So it was the logical place to start. They were also then able to put me in touch with successful pit bull adopters. I also knew that our local petfood store owners had a pit bull (Yaya). Originally, I was going to diversify more and shoot more “at home” footage and at city shelters, but expediency eventually decided the focus on WARL.

What do you see as the biggest challenge for pit bull type dogs?
The misconception that they are “bad” dogs that can sometimes be trained to be nice, whereas the reverse is obviously true and unfortunately the so-called pit bull problem is actually a bad people problem. So people are afraid to adopt pit bulls because all they hear about the breed is related to fighting rings so the assumption is that they are dangerous as a breed which is not the case. Consequently, pit bulls languish needlessly in shelters and of course many are euthanized.

How did you become involved in animal welfare?
I’ve been interested in this area since childhood (I won a prize at 6 for filling my doll pram with stuffed toy animals and making it a charity fundraiser for the RSPCA in the UK!) At about 9, I dragged my mother off to an animal rescue sanctuary – only to be crushed that the owner, who I idolized, was a rather bossy old battleaxe who clearly didn’t like kids! Undeterred, I’ve been a would-be animal sanctuary owner ever since. This has not turned out to be what I do, but I have volunteered on and off over the years at a couple of shelters. It’s a passion but not a profession for me, although I probably wouldn’t turn down the right offer in the field!

What is your relationship with the Washington Animal Rescue League?
I am a volunteer there. I help with the animals but mainly I have been making short videos on individual animals (mostly cats) that they place on the animals’ web site bios to help get them adopted. This has proven remarkably successful. I think all the cats with videos were adopted by people who “fell in love” watching the video. One person flew in from Puerto Rico to adopt one of the video cats!

How many animals do you have? How did they end up in your life?
Currently we have five animals in our family – two dogs and three cats. They are all rescues. (Our two children are also adopted). We also tried fostering a really sweet older cat, Agnes, but unfortunately my resident female cat decided to make her life miserable, so we had to stop which was sad for all of us. (She’s still on Petfinder in case you want to put a plug in for her!) There was a guppy until recently…)

So what’s your regular occupation? ‘Real job’ as we like to call it, since we know most of us do this in our theoretical ‘free time.’
I am an anti-nuclear activist. I founded a group called Beyond Nuclear and we work to end nuclear power and promote renewable energy. In fact, Pit Bull Confidential, which I had to do in what passes for my “spare time” was interrupted by the March 11, 2011 Fukushima reactor disaster in Japan so I had to delay shooting and editing for months because I had absolutely no free time outside of my real work.

What do you have planned for the future?
I am hoping to do a piece on why you should adopt an older cat. The “older” concept seems to start quite young – at 8 or so! But in shelters, the kitties over 8 linger, especially during kitten season when they are constantly passed over. It’s the reason we fostered Agnes, and while we had her it was depressing how little interest there was in an 8-year old cat who was sweet as can be. It’s a difficult story line to find substance for so I still need to map it out a bit and then clear some “free” time to make it. I shot some footage already of a wonderful “older” cat at WARL who was quite the comedian. So hopefully there won’t be any more nuclear catastrophes for a while (or ever, actually!) and I can get started soon. Another option would be to make Pit Bull Confidential, Part 2. There are a few owners and their dogs it would be fun to put on tape. I think seeing a dog in the home environment might actually be the best advertisement of all. So if you have suggestions for aspects I didn’t cover this time, let me know! I am also pondering whether I can get a celebrity owner to participate in Part 2, which might get both films a higher viewership. I was actually a bit disappointed that this piece did not get circulated as widely as I’d hoped.

Fido Factor helps connect dog lovers with dog friendly locations and services — its tagline is “Your life with dog.” It’s sort of like Yelp.com for canines.

Users can submit dog friendly locations (such as parks, restaurants, bars or pet services), including name, phone number, address and a description. Visitors can also review existing locations, add photos of their pets and participate in a discussion forum.

The San Francisco-based start up that launched June 26, 2009 features more than 50,000 dog friendly locations across the country, with the majority of listings in such cities as San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Boston and New York City.

Fido Factor’s Austin version has about 150 locations and growing.

Getting connected

Fido Factor uses Facebook Connect, a service that allows website developers to use Facebook’s log in system to tap into a user’s social network. Those who don’t have a Facebook account (or don’t want to use it), can create a free Fido Factor account.

Account holders can choose a home city, keep track of their reviews and location submissions, update and manage photos, select favorites and connect with Facebook friends.

Welcome to Fido Factor

A rotating carousel dominates the homepage, which includes featured locations, articles and user-submitted photos. When users pick a city to explore, the most recent reviews and added locations appear below the featured content.

Those who contribute the most reviews and new locations are featured in an area called “Top Dogs.” Same goes for submitted dog photos.

Finding and adding locations

Clicking on the “Locations” tab takes users to a Google map of the selected city’s center. The nearest 10 locations are indicated on the map with corresponding descriptions. Users can also browse categories.

To contribute a new place, click the “Add Location” button. After filling out the easy-to-use form, which allows users to include photos and a review, users submit the item for approval. A clever and useful sidebar called “Fido Factors” allows contributors to offer tips and include such dog-related features as if poop bags and water are available.

Submissions can be approved in as few as two days, but some take as long as a couple of weeks to approve.  That’s because founder Garrett Dodge verify the details himself, often calling each establishment to make sure everything is correct.

Users can also correct items on the map. I submitted a correction for Opal Divine’s, which was a few miles off and on the wrong side of MoPac. I noticed the change was published after about three days.

Reviewing

When contributors add a review, it instantly appears on Fido Factor. Reviews should be dog-specific and those who use Facebook Connect have the option of sending the review to their Facebook wall. Reviews appear below the description for locations for which they are associated.

For every review or location added for the San Francisco area, Fido Factor makes a donation to The San Francisco SPCA in your name to support homeless animals in San Francisco. So far Fido Factor has helped raise more than $500.

Going mobile

A Fido Factor app is available for iPhone users, which provides the only way for users to upload “Pooch Pics.” The photos appear on a Google map showing where and when the photo was taken.

Users can rate and tag the photos for cuteness, funniness, coolness and helpfulness. Ratings influence what photos appear on the home page’s “Top Pooch Pics.”

An Android app is not yet available, but plans call for development to start on it later this year.

Those who don’t have an iPhone can visit the mobile version of Fido Factor to browse locations, but reviewing, adding photos and submitting new locations is not currently supported.

Bottom line

I give Fido Factor two dew claws up! The site has a ton of potential and its open system means every community can make Fido Factor its own.

The delay in getting submissions online can be a little frustrating, but remember: Dodge’s review process ensures all the info on Fido Factor is reliable and he pretty much works alone.

Log on, add some locations and tell Fido Factor’s online community what you think of the listed dog friendly locations.

Q&A with Fido Factor founder Garrett Dodge

Tell me about any dogs you care for and how they came into your life.
My wife and I move to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2008. Shortly after getting settled in we got our Vizsla puppy Captain. We both like the outdoors and wanted a dog that we could take on all kinds of adventures. Some people think that Vizslas aren’t great city dogs, but honestly no dog should be left in an apartment all day. As long as Captain gets his two hours of exercise a day, he is happy to relax on the couch.

What’s your main occupation and how much time do you spend weekly on side projects, such as Fido Factor?
For the first year [Fido Factor launched June 26, 2009], I worked part-time on the business side of Fido Factor while my partner Ketu worked full time building the site. We love working on the site, but last year began to focus full time on our new social jukebox app Roqbot. Unfortunately, we haven’t had as much time to spend on new features for Fido Factor, but every week I approve dozens of new locations from our users. At some point we hope to add more social features and find time for an Android app.

What other web projects have you worked on or have planned for the future?
We also partnered with a website in the UK on a dog friendly app called Dog Friendly UK. Most recently we have been working on our jukebox app, Roqbot. With an active dog like a Vizsla I’m out discovering new dog friendly spots almost every weekend. Hopefully we can find time to make some updates to the site and the app this winter.

What inspired you to start Fido Factor?
On one of our first weekend trips with Captain, we went up to Muir Woods with friends. We didn’t think Captain would be allowed in so Kristen waited in the parking lot while I went in with our out-of-town guests. One of the rangers approached her and said that the dog couldn’t even be in the parking lot. I decided that finding dog friendly rules and places were too hard to find so I started thinking about a mobile app. A few months later, I met Ketu, who had also been working on mobile apps. We began working on Fido Factor. Initially we were focused on the Bay Area but soon expanded nationally and internationally.

Tell me about how people have responded to Fido Facto in San Francisco.
The response has been great. We were selected for a number of start-up events and have been in various media outlets. San Francisco loves dogs and technology so it was a great place to start things.

What’s been the biggest challenge?
The biggest challenge is finding the time! We were hoping to make a full-time business out of Fido Factor, but like many pet-related businesses, it has been mostly a passion project. We hope to continue to grow the site and make it self-supporting.

Describe the process you go through to vet submissions.
Every submission comes through to me. Many of them are incomplete, so I look up each business, add a photo if possible, and attempt to reach out the business owner. I try to approve locations a couple of times a week, although sometimes it takes a week or two. We’re looking into ways to make the process easier and faster.

How does Fido Factor deal with the various and growing breed discrimination?
In terms of breeds, we do add specifics like that in the tips. It is difficult to structure that kind of information into the drop down lists. As we’ve expanded the site nationally and internationally, we’ve found a number of specifics like that.  For example, in Boston they mostly don’t even want dogs on the outside patio at restaurants but some places encourage people to tie the dog to the railing and others want the dog on the other side of the sidewalk. Rather than try to structure all this we leave it to the reviews. Users can also submit a correction to suggest we add that to the Fido Factor tips. 

When did you launch in Austin?
We haven’t really had a city-by-city expansion. In late 2009 we added national support and have featured cities that have a good base of active users or that we’ve found time to build out ourselves. Austin is a very dog friendly city so it has been easy to add new locations and support our users there.

Do you plan to expand to other markets? Which ones?
We have over 50,000 locations right now. We try to add new places when we have time or are out exploring, but primarily we rely on our users. It only takes 2-3 passionate users in a city to help make the site great. When we started Fido Factor, we knew there were a number of good dog friendly books and websites, but none of them seemed to really be driven by the community. We wanted to create a site that was kept up to date and growing through user support.

What’s your measure of success for the various markets? 
Simple, happy passionate users! We love it when people share Fido Factor with their doggie friends. We always want to find time to build more cool new features, but in the meantime, we hope Fido Factor is a place where you can add your favorite spots and find new ones.

Do you plan to release and Android app for Fido Factor?
We’d love to do an Android app but haven’t managed to find time. Hopefully we’ll find time this winter and are also looking for other developers that might be interested in helping.

Do you plan to add any additional features soon?
I’d love to add a check-in feature to help people meet up at the dog park and also integration with one of the location data sources so that people can focus more on the doggie details and less on the location info.

What’s your biggest hope for Fido Factor?
We want people to enjoy using the site. We’d like to get to 200,000 locations and better support users in other countries.

Being a landlord I am often faced with the question, “can I have a pit bull dog?” Being a dog owner myself of pit bulls and a small dog I know that the dogs themselves, regardless of size or breed are typically not the issue. Any problem dogs I have experienced have been directly related to problem owners, by that I mean irresponsible in some way. …

The first and most important things I look for in those tenants with dogs is how do the owners treat their pets and how good of control do they have of them. Are the dogs obedience trained? Are they contained on the property or running lose? Have there been incidents in the past with their dogs? This can be determined through previous landlords.

Are the dogs part of the family or confined to the backyard? Backyard dogs are known to have behavior issues due to overstimulation of the wrong kind and lack of supervision. Not much different than if you left a small child in the yard by himself. Do you think he might create some problem and get into trouble?

Are the dogs crated when left unattended? Crate trained dogs are much less likely to cause damage when unattended and are typically much happier since the crate acts as their own safe haven.

What are the ages of the dogs? If younger do they have plenty of chew toys, to avoid damage to otherwise available chewables, like base boards or doors?

And of course there is no substitute for meeting the dogs and owners together to witness for yourself their ability to handle the dogs. It is also worth noting the general personality of the dog. Are they people friendly? Are they dog friendly? This may need to be determined if there is a shared space with other dogs on the property being leased. Ask the prospective tenants if they have witnessed behavioral issues with their dogs and how they handle them.

I hope these guidelines can assist you in your selection of great tenants both of the two and four legged kind.

A dog friendly landlord,
Michael Scott

Our Pack, Inc.

However, recently, Texas has seen an upswing in cries for breed-specific legislation, including an anti-pit bull rally in Tyler and a petition in Rusk County / Jacksonville calling for statewide discrimination against “pit bull” owners that has garnered hundreds of signatures. The last Texas legislative session also saw an attempt to get legislation passed against “pit bull” owners.

We need your help to stop this discrimination before it starts!

Love-A-Bull is starting a petition which directs our state lawmakers to:

• Keep intact the current state law that prohibits breed-discriminatory legislation
• Refuse to propose or support legislation which would discriminate against people based on a dog’s  breed or physical appearance

Please help us gather signatures for the petition, which will be presented to Texas state legislators in January 2010, and again at the start of the 2011 Legislative Session.

Download the petition text and signature page now! (2 PDF Docs)
OR
Download the petition text (Word Doc) and signature page (Excel) now!

Instructions:

1. Download and print out ONE (1) copy of the petition text.
2. Download and print out as many of the signature pages as you want.
3. Gather signatures from people who are eligible to vote in Texas. (They do not have to be registered voters.)
4. Make a copy of the signature pages for your records if you wish.
5. Send the original signature pages to Love-A-Bull
   Mail to: P.O. Box 18792, Austin, TX 78760

The text of the petition is as follows:

A Petition Directing the Members of the Texas Legislature to Oppose Discriminatory Legislation Against Dog Owners Based on a Dog’s Breed, Type, or Appearance

To be presented to the members of the Texas House and Senate on January 31, 2010 and at the start of the 2011 Legislative Session

Whereas we recognize that each and every dog is an individual in temperament and behavior, and physical appearance does not determine behavior;

Whereas all dogs have the potential to do serious or lethal harm, and this is not dictated solely by a dog’s physical appearance but by a number of complex circumstances;

Whereas dog owners should be held strictly liable for the actions of their dogs regardless of the dog’s physical appearance, so that both dog owners and victims of irresponsible dog owners are provided equal rights and restitutions;

Whereas breed-specific or breed-discriminatory legislation is unethical and inhumane, and has been shown to be financially unsupportable, a detriment to public safety, and a legal quagmire;

Whereas non-breed-specific or non-discriminatory laws provide public safety in an effective, humane, legal, equitable, and moral way;

The undersigned citizens of Texas do hereby direct the members of the state legislature to do the following:

1. Keep intact Texas Health and Safety Code 822.047, which prohibits municipalities from declaring dogs dangerous based solely on breed.
2. Refuse to vote for or support any discriminatory legislation against dog owners, including but not limited to breed bans, restrictions on particular types of dogs, or unequal ownership requirements that are based on a dog’s physical appearance.

All objectionable bills died in committee, including HB 925, which would have discriminated against pit bull owners. The next legislative session will start in 2011.

Read the coverage at these links:
KBTX Coverage
Best Friends Coverage