I met the loveliest old lady yesterday who, seemingly unaware it had been illegal since 1991, told me she recently had a “110 pound pitbull who used to sleep in my bed when I let him. The dog was sweet but very anxious and alert and I’d never leave him alone with my child so it didn’t maul him.”
Presumably she meant the dog mauling the child, not the other way round.
In any case, she said she tried to warn people not to approach the dog when she took it out on walks, “but people are just stupid. They think all dogs are harmless.” These walks tended to be short, because of the people, not because of the dog, she told me.
The dog also “made the most terrible uproar when someone rang the doorbell. He had a most peculiar bark, and a subtle but throaty growl that would chill anyone right to the bone. But that was part of the point.”
The world interfered with the old lady’s love for her pitbull.
“Eventually I had to take him to a behavioural therapist but that didn’t do any good.”
I didn’t get the impression the dog was with us today and by then someone else barged into the conversation so it was too late to ask.