Feature image is of Uso produced by my friend Johnny at Bahala Na Est 1999 and the first person I ever met in this game.
As a show quality American Bully breeder, I have my reservations about exotics breeders. I could name a lot of things I see and don’t agree with. Yet, this article is not about anything you all are thinking right now. What this article is about is the one thing the entire bully community or so-called bully community can afford to learn. That one thing is that the exotic community supports one another. That’s what this piece is all about. I won’t be bashing, hating, or even trying to give advice to the exotic community at all. So, if you started reading this hoping that that’s what I was going to do you can stop hoping now.
Have you ever been online? Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, even YouTube and got into a discussion with an exotic breeder? You two are having less than a cordial conversation and suddenly its 5 guys have shown up out of nowhere and now you’re being bombarded by at replies? Yea its happened to me once or twice on the days I’m feeling dangerous. There’s 1 simple explanation for that. Its because exotics breeders, all exotic breeders, have each other’s backs. From the tippy top to the very bottom. I truly believe that is the 1 thing that their community holds over the American bully community. They openly show support for breeding, studs, bitches, puppies, you name it they do it. The truth is that maybe the only thing keeping the exotic bullies alive. Their community is strong point-blank period. The American Bully community absolutely needs to learn some of this.
Our community and I say our community because I am apart of it, is very cliquey. Although I can’t quite put my finger on when this all changed or maybe it was always like this and people just have a way to display it due to the emergence of social media. The American Bully community is very much like high school. For the most part, it starts geographically. People from the west coast think that the Midwest and east coast have less than adequate stock compared to this side of the country and vise versa. Matter of fact, depending on one where someone has laid down their roots and kennel when asked, it’s very likely they will say the best dogs come from their part of the country. Then it trickles down to kennels. What kennels groups are associated with another. This has nothing to do with geographical location but more so how they are connected. These groups typically act like their more popular than the rest of the community and typically only associate themselves either at shows or online with the same people. Their actions vertebrate throughout the entire community.
The ironic thing about it is that it’s hard to call it a community. If you google the definition the first definition is” a group of people living in the same place or having a characteristic in common” by that definition we are a community but by the second definition “a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals” we most certainly do not. I know that we show dogs in the ring for trophy’s, ribbons, and bragging rights, but shouldn’t that competition start and end with the ring? Why does this community constantly have to judge, sneak dis, make passive-aggressive posts, and all the other little high school stuff people do? These are questions I can’t answer myself so in a way, I’m asking every single one of you to do some soul searching and ask yourselves why.
I’m not here to sing kumbaya and want everyone to kiss and love each other. I understand there are different views and opinions, but we should be intrigued and eager to learn why there is a difference and not try to belittle it. To move in a positive forward direction you must understand why someone thinks differently than you do. Who knows you may find a better way of doing things and at the very least you have a better perspective. If we support one another we all prosper, and the exotic community is a prime example of this. If you don’t know how to do this try something that I do. Make it a point to have a conversation with at least 1 new person each day within the community. Get to know them and let them know you genuinely want to know about them. At least for me, that’s how it started. Although I couldn’t possibly know how many new people I contact daily now to pick their brain there’s just so many. Put that pride down guys, this isn’t high school, it’s ok to support one another, we are all breeding to the same standard, right? I couldn’t find a better way to end this article so I’ll leave you with this quote by Zig Ziglar, it states “The first step in solving a problem is to recognize that it does exist.”
