Eugene weekly., January 06, 2011, Page 12, Image 12

TRASK BEDORTHA
TRASK BEDORTHA
JENNY JOHNSON
KELLY BEAL
senior level account executive at
KMTR NewsSource 16
artist, online jewelry business, Bealdesigns.com
MARTINA
(AKA DUFFEL BAG OF LOVE)
Martina was found wandering the streets of Oakland, Calif.,
and despite her sunny, outgoing personality, wasn’t able to fi nd a
home. Luckily, she was pulled from the shelter and sent to a foster
home, where Jenny Johnson found her on Petfi nder.com “I got
Martina in December of 2006. I had a friend who adopted/rescued
a pit mix, and over the course of a couple of years, I fell in love
with the dog,” Johnson says. Upon discovering she wasn’t fi rst
in line to get Rhoda the pit mix (the owner’s ex-boyfriend was),
“I decided I needed my very own Rhoda-type dog.” She found
several options on Petfi nder.com, which lists both local dogs and
dogs across the country.
Johnson says, “I did not know anything about Petfi nder or
that eight out of 10 shelter dogs are unwanted pit bull or pit bull
mixes.” Of all the dogs she saw, it was Martina, all the way down
in California, that she fell in love with. She made the 16-hour
roundtrip drive on Thanksgiving weekend to meet “my new best
friend Martina.”
Martina is named for Martina Navratilova, the tennis player,
because she is so “buff,” and she’s “energetic with a capital E!”
Johnson says. To work off some of that energy, Martina goes
running alongside when Johnson takes her horse on trail rides and
ran with her during Greenhill’s 2010 “Bark in the Park.” The dog
is always up for a run, a hike, tearing up a new stuffed toy or
trail ride, Johnson says, but “luckily she is also down with being
a couch potato or hanging out in the car for a couple of hours as
needed.”
When Martina isn’t at the barn, rolling in “stinky smelling
things” while Johnson rides her horse, she has also been known
to dress up on lavender wings and have her toenails painted pink.
“Ava is a huge chunk of love,” Kelly Beal says. “She looks big
and intimidating but there isn’t a mean or aggressive bone in her
body.” She says, “I used to hear all these horrible things about pit
bulls, but after working with them and owning one I have come to
see that they are truly an amazing breed with a depth of spirit and
soulfullness that is unmatched by any other breed.”
In addition to Ava, Beal has a couple of small dogs as well
and “she is so gentle and loving with them, aware of her size and
strength.” Ava’s best friend is a seven-pound Chihuahua who
curls up with her every night.
Ava, Beal says, came from LCAS, and Beal adopted her from
Luv-a-Bull. Beal is now the vice president of Luv-a-Bull and does
all the photography for grants, publications, adoptions, etc.
Before Ava, Beal says, she had Rottweilers. When it came time
for her next dog, “I knew I had to get another big dog, and I knew
it had to be a rescue. I like having a big dog because they have
always made me feel safe in my home, camping, hiking, etc.”
She says she chose a pit because “I had heard how wonderful
pit bulls were and how human-oriented they are, so I decided to
get a pit bull from a local rescue.”
When not snoozing with her small dog friends, Beal says, Ava
likes to go for hikes, play with the sprinkler — chasing the water
as it rushes out of the sprinkler head — and hang her head out of
the car window so she can feel the wind on her face. Beal says Ava
“thinks she is a lapdog, and whenever she can she unapologetically
jumps up into my lap and curls up like a doughnut for a long nap.
All 75 pounds of her.”
Beal says, “Because of Ava, I know I will always have a pit
bull in my life until the day I die.”
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12 JANUARY 6, 2011
EUGENE WEEKLY
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