Two pit bulls with light brown coats, one adult and one older with white markings, in an indoor setting with plain walls and natural daylight. 2:54
Maria Sanchez channel icon Maria SanchezOriginal creator 2.1M views Save

The “aggressive” pit bull was just scared

Cruz was two years old and living on the streets of San Bernardino, California, when rescuers reached him. He was dirty, sick and covered in ticks, and he wanted nothing to do with them. more

The rescuers had to use a choke stick to get him under control, and they labeled him aggressive. It's a word pit bulls hear a lot.

Maria Sanchez, who works at the animal shelter, didn't believe it. To her, Cruz didn't look mean. He looked frightened, and she set out to prove it.

Cruz is hunkered down in a corner of his cage. Maria talks to him in a sweet, coaxing voice and asks the same small questions over and over. "You don't look like you've been taken care of very well," she tells him.

He doesn't come, not at first. He keeps his distance and looks at her with sad eyes, but one thing gives him away. "Oh, I see a tail wag," she says. "There's the tail wag."

He edges closer. Maria hears him grunting and asks him about that too. One viewer who has raised three pit bulls heard it as a moan of fear, not a growl. "These bars are too thick," Maria says, but she works her hand through anyway, and soon he is licking her finger.

A dog licks a person's finger near a metal bowl against a plain wall. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Cruz licks Maria's finger once he's finally close enough to reach.

"I knew I was going to talk you into it," she says. Then she tells him what she believed from the start. "See, you're not aggressive."

Now the dog with the scary label is leaning into scratches on the side of his head and under his chin. His tail is going again. "He's happy," Maria says. "He was just scared."

Two pit bulls with light brown coats, one adult and one older with white markings, in an indoor setting with plain walls and natural daylight. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Cruz was two years old and living on the streets of San Bernardino, California, when rescuers reached him.

"This is all you want," she tells him. "Just want love." By the end he is stretching toward her to get as much of it as he can, and one viewer swears there is a smile on his face.

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