Started From the Bottom, Now It’s Memory Foam Mattresses and Nighttime Cuddles

This is Mason. He is an American Pit Bull Terrier, and my best friend.

When Mason was six months old he was found wandering the streets alone with a ruptured cruciate ligament. He was taken to the shelter, in need of extensive medical treatment. Sadly, many shelters are so overwhelmed with unadopted Pit Bulls that they aren’t able to keep ones that show up with serious and expensive injuries. Thankfully, the Treasure Coast Humane Society was not one of those places. They chose to save his life without thinking twice about the cost.

There was some speculation about what had happened to Mason before he was found, but the general consensus was that he was hit by a car and left for dead. Later we would find out that he was probably abused as well, and it took him years to stop cowering whenever someone would take off a belt.

But whatever or whoever it was that injured him couldn’t keep him down. He underwent surgery at the Humane Society and made a complete recovery.

It was my husband, John, who first found Mason, a year before we met. John and his roommates decided to adopt a dog from the humane society. After searching for a half hour or so they had narrowed it down to three dogs, none of whom were Mason. As they stood there debating, John felt something poke him in the back. He turned to find Mason, with his blanket in his mouth and a huge smile on his face. Mason nudged the blanket through the cage, asking to play tug of war. In the midst of such tragic circumstances, here was a ten month old puppy who didn’t know how to do anything but smile and play. Immediately they brought this lively little Pit Bull into one of the play rooms. The first thing he did was jump up and take John’s hat off his head before running around in an effort to get John to chase him. It’s a game he never grew tired of, and one we would later dub “get me”.

That was all it took for John and his roommates to pick Mason. Although if we are being honest, I’m pretty sure Mason picked them.

After a few months, John’s roommates took off, leaving Mason behind. I’ll admit, John and Mason had their differences. They struggled to figure out how to live together. At this point Mason was a one year old pitbull that thought everything was a game, even in the middle of the night, and John was getting used to having to take care of a whole house on his own while working odd hours. Suffice to say that when I first met them, they were not a well oiled machine.

But over time something happened - we became a family. Mason went from sleeping on floors to cuddling with us on our memory foam mattress. He went from eating the furniture to a prescription food diet. And he went from running around the house with too much pent up energy to daily walks and weekly agility classes.

About a year and a half after I met John and Mason, I graduated law school. I spent the next three months preparing for the bar exam. Each day I spent no less than ten hours locked in a room studying, and hardly ever left the house. Mason took up residence under my desk, not leaving the room until I did. When I would collapse onto the bed in frustrated tears, he would lie next to me, resting his chin on the top of my head. He became my confidant, my study partner, and my all around best friend.

The sad truth is, not all people saw my best friend the way I did. Based on his breed alone there were multiple places we weren’t allowed to go. Even those places we were allowed at, we had to be careful. What was seen as a playful bark or jump when other dogs did it was seen as aggressive when he did.

We periodically took him to the dog park to get some exercise, but we were careful to only go when it was empty. One day, however, another dog came into the park while we were there. As we were packing up our stuff to leave we turned to find the two dogs running and playing together. At one point the other dog went after a ball that we had just bought Mason, and Mason just let him play with it. After awhile, a bigger dog entered the park with no interest in making friends. Unfortunately, Mason is terrible at reading social cues. He went up to the newcomer and began sniffing him, failing to note the other dog’s annoyance. The other dog turned around and pounced on Mason, pinning him to the ground. John and I ran over in a panic, concerned both about Mason’s safety and how he would react. We had never seen him in a position where he was being threatened, and we weren’t ignorant of the fact that he was a Pit Bull who could do some real damage if he chose to. It turned out that our fears were unnecessary. As the other dog stood above him growling, Mason managed to roll out from under him without so much as barring his teeth. Immediately he came running back to us, shaken up but safe.

The owner of the other dog took him and left without a word. We packed up right away, already getting glares from the other park-goers. They were far enough away that all they saw was a tussle between two dogs, one of which was a Pit Bull. Even though we have chosen not to go back to any dog parks, I couldn’t have been more proud of the way my boy handled himself.

Mason is six years old now and he is just as much of as handful as he was when we first got him. He has no spacial awareness, thinks every pillow is his, insists that you play with him at one in the morning, and can’t keep his tongue to himself.

But truthfully? I wouldn’t have it any other way.