Wide-eyed children gasp as they learn someone probably poured battery acid down Kale’s back, the pit bull that is now licking their hands and nibbling at bits of string cheese. It could have been acid, but it also could have been gasoline that was then set on fire.
The kids stop squirming for the first time all class, groaning out loud at pictures of bloodied and abused dogs that were used for dog fighting.
The children are sixth graders at Truman Middle School, located amid cookie-cutter housing on the West Side, where Animal Humane New Mexico’s 505 Pit Crew is leading a conversation about dog fighting.
“So what type of people fight dogs?” asked Ellen Schmidt, 505 Pit Crew educator.
“Bad guys?” a boy responds.
Although the topic may seem too violent for young audiences, Schmidt said most dogfighters see their first dogfight at age 6 or 7 and engage in dog fighting in their early teens. Truman Middle School teacher Peggy Lynch-Hill said she frequently overhears bits of conversation related to dog fighting.
“They’ll talk about little things like, ‘When I was walking to school today, there was a loose dog, and I didn’t know what to do.
It was about to get hit by a car, and I think my neighbors fight dogs,’” she said. “They are wonderful kids, wonderful parents and hardworking families, but there are a lot of incidents of crime here.”
Schmidt said she was asked to do a class at a multimedia digital arts charter school after a call about boys there filming dogfights and posting them on YouTube.
“Sometimes we have students who are pretty quiet during class, and you can tell that they’ve seen this before, but I don’t push too hard,” she said. “We give them the info and let them make their own decisions.”
Schmidt goes around the Truman classroom asking questions, and students discuss the positive, “tough guy” image of dog fighting propagated by rappers such as DMX as opposed to the reality of animal abuse. Lynch-Hill said the images and ideas stick with the kids long after Schmidt and her colleague leave.
“The most common statement afterwards is ‘I had no idea it was so bad,’” Lynch-Hill said. “They have a whole different perspective on people like Michael Vick, who is looked on as a sports hero.”
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
The classroom, one of a series of trailers, is decorated with handmade signs sporting messages such as “I am worthy, I am gifted, I have ups and downs, I am not perfect,” or “Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?”
Foot-long paper cranes hang from the wall, as well as a newspaper article discussing the middle school class’ ongoing efforts to raise awareness about spaying and neutering. Lynch-Hill said she has always focused her curriculum on humane education because education is not just about academics.
“There’s a place for math and reading, but if you don’t grow up to be a whole, empathetic, kind and compassionate human being, then what’s the point,” she said.
The whole 505 Pit Crew mentality aims to evoke empathy in children who can then educate their parents and communities, Schmidt said.
“If we can have a student sit and look at an image of a dog they’ve never thought about before, and they say, ‘That’s really not cool, and I feel really bad for that dog,’ that’s like the seed that starts a whole different thought process,” she said.
The 505 Pit Crew, which was founded by Schmidt and a coworker in August 2011, has visited six middle and high schools and has visited some schools up to four times. Schmidt said they stress the fact that pit bulls are not naturally violent, as some might think, and one of the ways they try to change that image is through their weekend pit bull training classes, which are free for individuals ages 12 to 20.
The training center is an oasis of AstroTurf amid the International District south of Central Avenue on the east side of town. Bright red tunnels, blue and yellow elevated walkways, and even a kiddie pool sit on the special doggy grass that can absorb urine. It doesn’t smell — they wash it every morning.
UNM student Elisa Mares is studying for a master’s degree in policy and planning. She is temporarily taking care of Blaze, a 1-and-a-half-year-old pit bull mix, so that he doesn’t have to live in a shelter while awaiting adoption.
“When we first had him, he was a wild animal,” she said. “He had never been in a home, so little things like setting down the remote control would freak him out. I love seeing him succeed, like just now he did the tunnel; he rocked at the tunnel.”
Mares said Blaze was found in a ditch in Valencia County, half-frozen and half-dead. He was missing 90 percent of his fur because of severe demodectic mange, a condition caused by an overpopulation of Demodex mites.
Schmidt said people abandon dogs like Blaze because they assume pit pulls are violent animals.
“Singling out a single breed or type of dog as dangerous or threatening is not effective because it’s all about the individual dogs, and what really affects individual dogs is how they’re raised, how they’re handled and how they’re trained,” she said.
