Pit bulls get a better name thanks to foundation

Shoppers of Mantis Pet Supply in Ypsilanti were greeted Saturday afternoon to a room filled with barking dogs, all looking for homes. Romeo, an American Pit Bull Terrier, fostered by Joanie Wazney, pulls on his leash in an attempt to chase the store cat, unaware of activities happening around him. “He is so concerned with that cat. He has been going after it all afternoon,” Wazney said, while Romeo continued to pull, almost breaking lose.
Joanie Wazney, founder of The Buster Foundation, has been working under the name since 2002 to help educate the public about the misconceptions given to the pit bull breed. “I started the organization because I felt that even though pit bulls are shunned upon, they are still animals and not all of them are aggressive animals,” she said. The foundation, which also doubles as a charitable rescue group, is dedicated to helping re-home surrendered pit bull and pit bull breed mixes. “The Buster Foundation's mission is to help dispel the myths surrounding the American Pit Bull Terrier (APBT), reeducate the public as to the truths about the APBT and help to re-home as many dogs as humanely possible,” Wazney said as Holly, a white and brown pit bull terrier visited with a family, looking to adopt another dog into their family.
Holly was brought into the rescue just a few months back after having been on the run for almost five weeks. After finally being caught by animal control, Holly weighed a mere 35 pounds. On Christmas day, Holly gave birth, with the help of her foster mom, Heather Damon, to eleven still-born puppies. “After carefully removing them and tenderly covering their tiny little souls to ready them for disposal, I tearfully cleaned up after Holly each time another lifeless form appeared, thinking to myself, Merry Christmas, I now have another pity story to add to my memoirs,” Heather wrote on The Buster Foundation website. “It’s really hard to watch someone or something go through such a traumatizing event, its reasons like this that I volunteer extra time to save dogs like her.”
The foundation, which has no acting shelter, runs with the help of foster families who care for the dogs out of their own homes and pockets. The dogs in the custody of Wazney and her foster families are either dogs that have been abandoned by their previous owners, strays taken in by animal control or are just in need of a fresh start. In all, the foundation currently has twenty-two dogs being fostered with many more requests each day. The group meets three times a week, to showcase the dogs in their care and hope that an appropriate home comes along.
Paul Bellottie, a resident of Allen Park, traveled to Ypsilanti to speak with Wazney about becoming a volunteer. Bellottie, who is unable to foster a pit bull due to a law passed in December that forbids new pit bulls to be brought into the city limits, feels that the laws passed recently in his town are based on stereotypes of pit bulls. “If a pit bull bites a child, it is headline news, but if any other breed does the same, no one hears about it,” he said, while petting another dog that had been taken out of her cage to socialize.
While the end was not as successful as Wazney had hope and no official adoptions were made, many potential families came to visit. “We have a very rigorous adoption policy, so that we know our dogs are going to great, forever homes. Apathy, fear and ignorance are the reasons that I have some of the very best dogs in the world in my care,” Wazney said.