Vasi captured my heart when I saw her picture at my vet's office. Everyone that I knew thought I was nuts for wanting to adopt this creature. Vasi is a pit bull mix and that was all my friends could see. All I could see was her beautiful amber eyes begging me to take her home. Vasi adapted beautifully with my 11-year old dog, Dascha, a Jack Russell mix. In March of 2004, we lost Dascha to an accident and that is when Vasi's lead/dog aggression became noticeably worse. I was worried that because of her breed someone would hurt her even though she is not people aggressive. I was seriously considering giving her up for adoption but I fought with that idea. I am her 4th home in her 4 short years. My other major concern was that she would be put to sleep if I couldn't make this work especially with all the negative media attention pit bulls receive. I just couldn't let that happen.

I looked around and spoke to many 'trainers'. Many of their methods leaned towards what I would consider degrading and mean. There was no way on the world that I could use a reversible choke collar on my child. Others suggested shock collars and I couldn't do that in good conscience. One more search on the Internet lead me to Kari's site. The caption 'bad dogs wanted' caught my eye. Delving more into the site made me finally feel like I found someone who could help me. I emailed Kari right away and we met shortly after that.

After meeting Kari, getting our to-do list and working with Vasi on a daily basis, it has been amazing to see the change in Vasi! I am so proud of her. She is more confident and less aggressive towards dogs when she is on lead. The more I gain the Alpha role in our pack the more confident she gets. You wouldn't believe that her best buddy is a 7-lb toy poodle!

In fact, this pit bull mix of mine is doing so well that we are enrolling in Kari's basic obedience class. I am so excited! I can't wait to see how much Vasi's confidence will grow!

I can't even begin to thank Kari enough for helping me keep my Vasi happy, confident, and above all safe.

Owner: Toni Antonicelli