3 Reasons I Love Painting Pit Bulls

Reason #3: Huge, happy pit bull smiles

I love to paint smiling dogs, and pit bulls don’t hide their emotions! When pit bulls are happy, their faces show pure joy! I like to show off their blissful, comedic side!

Side note: Are you wondering if dogs really smile? Here’s a quote from Patricia McConnell, a Ph.D certified applied animal behaviorist and professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison: “When dogs smile – and I believe they do smile – they dog’s jaw is a little relaxed, the mouth is open a little, the lips are pulled back and they’re panting slightly. We have the same smile as dogs, except that we don’t pant, well, not usually. Also, dogs eyes are a little squinty when they smile, and ours are too, it’s the anti-bo-tox look. That smile is one thing that attracts us to dogs.“

For more on this subject, read Patricia’s book For the Love Of A Dog: Understanding Emotion In You And Your Best Friend. Highly recommended!

Reason #2: Coats of Many Colors

Pit bull coat colors include the whole dog fur palette and then some! Not to mention spots and stripes in every possible combination. Eyes run the gamut … anything from yellow to green, light brown, dark brown, and occasionally blue.  Ears might be cropped or natural … and natural ears are so ador-a-bull … sometimes floppy, half-floppy, sometimes ears up, or one ear up & one down (my personal favorite)! A dog painting person couldn’t ask for anything more fun!

Here are some of the “technical” pit bull/am staff colors:
Black, Brown, Red, Tri-color (black and tan or blue and tan), Black with Brindle Points, Smut, Sable, Dilute Sable, Buckskin, Fawn, Blue Fawn, Brindle, Fawn Brindle, Blue Brindle, Black Brindle, Chocolate Brindle, Red Brindle, Mahogany, Brindle, Blue Brindle, Sable Brindle, Blue, Blue/Fawn, Seal, White, Cinnamon

Reason #1: To Know Them Is To Love Them

Pit Bulls are people-loving, attention-craving, intelligent, fun dogs. One of the first pit bulls I got to know was my cousin’s dog Lily. I fell hard for Lily when dogsitting her. She did these extreme side-ways zoomies around her house like a motorcycle racing around tight curves. I should mention she was more than 10 years old at the time! Every pit bull I subsequently met was like Lily – affectionate, bold, fun-loving, silly, and certainly not deserving of a bad reputation.

Thanks Lily!

If you don’t know a pit bull and want to learn more about them, a good place to start is Badrap.org. Be sure and check out Breed Info and Monster Myths – lots of GREAT info!

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