Can't a dog get a break?

I was out for my morning stroll the other day when I caught a snippet of conversation between two middle-aged women who were walking behind me. Either I quickly outpaced them or they turned around and headed the other way, because all I heard was a small portion of what one woman said to the other before the duo slipped out of earshot.

"So there I was, walking along, when all of a sudden I saw this guy coming toward me with a huge white pit bull! Oh my God! It was huge! I didn't know what to do! I kept walking, but I tried to act like I didn't see the dog . . . ."

Stereotypes die hard. I wonder, though, what the dog's owner looked like, because that may go a long way toward explaining this woman's reaction, especially if she was alone at the time. A disheveled punk in search of his next mugging victim? Or a clean-cut guy out walking his pooch before heading to work? I'm guessing the former, which is half of the problem. Unfortunately, pit bulls remain the breed of choice for lowlifes, thugs and criminals, so the pups are presumed to be guilty of . . . something . . . by association. Sure, many pit bulls hang out with a bad (human) crowd, but as dogs, they don't have much of a say in the matter, now do they?